Pink cherry blossom…
Oh dear, Lucy Corrander has really started something for me this Spring with her tree following meme… I am “observing” trees everywhere I look now. Not that surprising, I suppose, when Cardiff does have so many – a lot of them dating back to Victorian and Edwardian times.
This time I am featuring some cherry trees (Prunus). I don’t know if it’s an unusual season this year, but I have noticed that different cherry trees have been blossoming at different times. The two in a neighbouring garden were in flower in March and are now in fruit, while others have bloomed in April and one or two are still covered in flowers.
First the row of cherry trees alongside Pontcanna Fields…
Pink and white cherry trees in Pontcanna Fields, Cardiff, in early April
I took these pictures on April 9. The white cherry blossom was at its height but the pink trees were not in full bloom yet…
White cherry blossom in Pontcanna Fields
The white flowers seem to be single in form
The pink blossom, also shown at the top of this post, seems to be double
But my latest “discovery” is a beautiful – and huge – cherry tree in Bute Park. At least I think it’s still Bute Park, although it is over the River Taff bridge on the far side from the castle.
Impressive white-flowering cherry tree in Bute Park, Cardiff
The Bute Park cherry tree indicated on the Google Maps satellite view – obviously in Summer, not Spring
I pass this tree every day on the bus but hadn’t realised it was a cherry until I went to investigate on Good Friday (April 18), a gloriously sunny day. I was working but took a proper lunch break to walk over to the park.
It is such a magnificent tree…
Despite the fact that there were families around, playing ball games with their dogs, I wandered around under the cherry tree, looking up in awe and talking to myself (and the tree) and taking these snaps.
When the cherry blossom starts to fall I always think of the song Kayleigh by Marillion (1985): Do you remember the cherry blossoms in the market square? Do you remember I thought it was confetti in her hair? (lyrics here).
Blossom like wedding confetti…
The flowers are double…
Zooming in, you can see an insect and the serrated leaves…
The trunk was twisted…
I wondered what sort of cherry tree it was. By the leaves, I thought it might be a Prunus serrula, but the bark is all wrong. The magnificent red, shiny bark of Prunus serrula is one that I CAN recognise…
Bark of Prunus serrula at Pine Lodge Gardens in Cornwall, by Jonathan Billinger on Geograph UK…
Then I thought it might be a “great white cherry”, as it is great, and white, and a cherry. That is officially called Prunus ‘Tai-Haku’, but it seems to have single blossoms. Looking back to the small trees in Pontcanna Fields, I suspect the white was Prunus ‘Tai-Haku’ and the pink blossom was Prunus serrulata (not to be confused with Prunus serrula). Both of these are Japanese flowering cherries, which don’t produce edible fruit. There’s a section on Wikipedia about the symbolism of cherry blossom in Japan.
Finally, I have concluded that the Bute Park tree is a Prunus avium ‘Plena’, a double-flowered version of our British wild cherry that has long been in cultivation. It’s mentioned in John Evelyn’s Elysium Britannicum, which he compiled between 1650 and 1700. The tree is also known as Prunus avium ‘Grandiflora’ or ‘Flore Plena’. A Prunus avium ‘Plena’ can grow up to 45 feet tall and this one must be very old.
Just to confuse us, although Prunus avium translates as “bird cherry”, it’s not a bird cherry, that’s Prunus padus!
Top left you can see where a huge bough has broken off, making the tree slightly lopsided…
The cherry’s bark is amazing
Up close and personal with the bark
A large fungus, I think, although it felt as hard as wood when I touched it. Possibly a very old Trametes versicolor, turkey tail fungus?
What’s so tragic is how unappreciated the tree is. Look at all this litter people have dropped beneath it…
Drink cups, bottles and cigarette ends…
…and beer cans
The worst thing of all? I passed by again last night and all the lovely white blossom has disappeared like melting snow…
Maybe I will visit this remarkable tree again, but it’s clearly at its best in Spring.
The Squirrelbasket 
There’s such a contrast between the beauty of the tree and the ugliness of the litter that humans create. Love cherry trees.
I guess they are good for the bees, too? A shame their flowering season is so brief.
Have a great Mayday weekend 🙂
Yes I think so. Enjoy the sunshine!