Cheery tree blossoms

Michigan Cherry tree blossoms in the summer.... more

by Optical Playground By MP Ray

Title

Cheery tree blossoms

Artist

Optical Playground By MP Ray

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

Michigan Cherry tree blossoms in the summer.
A cherry blossom is the flower of any of several trees of genus Prunus, particularly the Japanese Cherry, Prunus serrulata, which is sometimes called sakura after the Japanese (桜 or 櫻; さくら). Many of the varieties that have been cultivated for ornamental use do not produce fruit. Edible cherries generally come from cultivars of the related species Prunus avium and Prunus cerasus.
"Hanami" is the centuries-old practice of picnicking under a blooming sakura or ume tree. The custom is said to have started during the Nara Period (710�794) when it was ume blossoms that people admired in the beginning. But by the Heian Period (794�1185), cherry blossoms came to attract more attention and hanami was synonymous with sakura.From then on, in both waka and haiku, "flowers" (花 hana?) meant "cherry blossoms". The custom was originally limited to the elite of the Imperial Court, but soon spread to samurai society and, by the Edo period, to the common people as well. Tokugawa Yoshimune planted areas of cherry blossom trees to encourage this. Under the sakura trees, people had lunch and drank sake in cheerful feasts.
Japan gave 3,020 cherry blossom trees as a gift to the United States in 1912 to celebrate the nations' then-growing friendship, replacing an earlier gift of 2000 trees which had to be destroyed due to disease in 1910.

Uploaded

August 12th, 2013