Japan is giving the United States 250 new cherry trees to help replace the hundreds that are being ripped out this summer as construction crews work to repair the crumbling seawall around the capital’s Tidal Basin.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida made the announcement as President Joe Biden welcomed him to the White House on Wednesday for an official visit and state dinner. Biden said the gift is meant to mark the 250th anniversary of the U.S. in 2026, adding, “Like our friendship, these trees are timeless, inspiring and thriving.”
In 1912, first lady Helen Herron Taft and Viscountess Chinda, wife of the Japanese ambassador to the United States, planted two Yoshino cherry trees on the northern bank of the Potomac River’s Tidal Basin. They were part of the 3,000 such trees Japan gave the U.S. in a symbol of the two countries’ friendship.
thanks, japan!
Thank you Japan!
It looks like whoever (or whatever) wrote this article, doesn’t know that cherry trees and cherry blossoms are two different trees and sort of keeps mixing them throughout the article. I had a feeling that’s about what was going on, just based on the title.
cherry trees and cherry blossoms are two different trees
Do you mean “ornamental” cherry trees and “fruiting” cherry trees? A “cherry blossom” (or “sakura”) refers to the flower of a cherry tree, usually of the “ornamental” variety. The article seemed fine to me.
They aren’t the same type of tree, though. Cherry blossoms don’t grow cherries you can put in a pie.
Both kinds of trees have blossoms. Granted, people do call ornamental cherry trees “cherry blossom trees” … but, technically speaking, a “blossom” is literally the flower of any stonefruit tree.
And cherry wood, prized for its attractive red-orange color and excellent working characteristics, comes from neither. Most cherries cultivated for fruit, or Japanese ornamental/blossom cherries are considered “true cherries,” where most “cherry” lumber comes from the black cherry, which is not considered a true cherry.
But the Japanese Sakura are quite specific.
Yes, they are, which is why the gifting of cherry trees is such a strong symbol of friendship! Experiencing Sakura is uniquely Japanese.
The transience of the blossoms, the extreme beauty and quick death, has often been associated with mortality; for this reason, sakura are richly symbolic…
Walking through groves of Sakura, especially when the pedals are falling in the breeze, is a surreal experience. I never get tired of it.
pedals are falling in the breeze
Yikes, that sounds dangerous! Someone should make an AI generated image of that 😁
Prompt: Someone walking through groves of flowering trees. The flowers have pedals instead of petals. And pedals are falling from the trees.
Thanks, but it seems that one thing all free AI image generators have in common is ignoring the word “pedals” 😮💨
Yeah, I tried with free generators without success too.
@[email protected] Why can’t you guys tell the difference between pedals and petals? Explain yourself!
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Can you try responding again, now?
That’s pretty cash money of you, Japan.
Love how AP journalists say “Washington” instead of “Washington D.C.”, as if the state of Washington doesn’t exist.
Even the AP Stylebook recommends just using “Washington” to describe the Capitol because of its “Global recognition”, but as one of the 7.8 million Washingtonians who don’t live in D.C. on the other side of the country, I absolutely find this shit confusing.
Especially since Seattle’s cherry blossom festival starts today, so it would be the right timing for someone to gift us cherry trees if they were going to.
FYI since you’re into this kind of thing, ‘the Capitol’ refers to the US Capitol building.
‘The Capital’ means DC, the capital city in this case.
Hope you get some fresh Japanese Sakura. They are amazing.
Why couldn’t they also transplant and save the old trees?
Edit: ok I believe you guys, was just hopeful and curious
As the other commenter already said, it is really hard to transplant old trees. Think about how big tree roots get. There is no way to save 100% of a planted tree’s roots so cuts have to be made. And by the time you are able to free the tree from the ground, you’ve often cut too much of its roots for it to survive.
That plus they also have comparatively shorter lifespans.
It is horrendously difficult to move even a single old tree
Is it? I’ve seen big truck digger attachments and cranes that do exactly that. Maybe they don’t survive it well or are very sensitive or something.
Some species travel better than others! Think a relatively small ball of roots vs a sprawling deep root network.
My area had a wind storm years ago and it was enough to kill most of the oak trees (?) in the area. They can be pretty sensitive to stress.
Trees have a life span and they were getting old already.
If you’re in SF, there’s a map of every tree, so you can check out the blooms if you’re in town!
That’s awesome! That actually sounds like an app Peter / Miles would have in the new Spider-man games for a side quest… to take pictures of each bloom or something.
Damnit. If I didn’t read this just now after dragging my kid on 10 miles of hikes (with his Spidey water bottle!) the last few days, you’d have just given me a plan for today! 😁
But yeah… 100% doing that this weekend in his Spidey gear.
They really want that U.S Steel deal
Or they are just doing something cool.
This is a temporary solution to a climate change problem. They can’t keep building seawalls. The Potomac will flood and the brackish water will kill many of the famed cherry trees.
We get it, everything sucks. Nothing is allowed to ever be good, even little things.
We really should move the capital to somewhere in Missouri though, for geographical reasons. It’s total horseshit the capital is on one side of the country.
I mean, when it was created we didn’t exactly have the entire other half of the country.
I do agree though, a capital on the Mississippi or somewhere else in the central regions would be way way way more symbolic.
Right, they put it in the middle, when that was the middle. The middle had moved very far. I think it’s time to move to capital. Not just for symbolic reasons, but for practical reasons, too. It would make it a lot easier for people to petition their government directly when the capital is closer geographically.
The vast majority of Americans still live on the east coast. Something like 80% of our population is east of the Mississippi River still. People didn’t “go west” as much as school had us believe.
I remember seeing a project around a decade ago that tried to pinpoint a geographic population center, and I think it had barely moved to Eastern Ohio, much less farther west. And in recent years there’s been a huge amount of people relocating from West back East, mainly North Carolina.
People move, populations change. What is a “center” now will change.
The mean and median center of population for the US are in southern Illinois and Southern Missouri. So, yeah, anywhere in that area is a hell of a lot closer than DC.
That 80% number you just quoted is total bullshit.
Ok, but this seems like #78,374 on our priority list.
It seems that stretch of the Potomac doesn’t get much if any salt. It’s way up there and flows rather well, typically.
The tidal influence ends effectively at chain bridge, but they don’t call it the Tidal Basin for nothing, presumably.
Not to say salt couldn’t happen if there is a sustained drought + more sea level rise + a strong wind from the SE (Yes, that’s a big influence on the tidal fluctuation in the Chesapeake!)
Fun fact, sakura trees typically live to 20-40yo, and the DC Japanese Grove is more than 150yo now. They must be well cared for, or something else is going on.
