Plant Journeys blog post #3 – Cherry: setting for spring picnics

We are told that the Japanese poet Saigyō (Buddhist name of Fujiwara no Norikiyo, 1118–90) made multiple trips to Yoshino and even built a temporary hut there. The beauty of the blossoms deeply touched him.

The cherry’s branches

set all aflame

with blossom

morning mist

drifting like smoke

[Meredith McKinney, trans. Gazing at the Moon: Buddhist Poems of Solitude – Saigyō (Boulder: Shambala, 2021), p. 99]

In fact, what captivated the Japanese was the fleeting nature of cherry blossoms: not just their beauty but also the shortness of their existence. This is why, after World War II, cherry blossoms were used as a symbol by kamikaze pilots who adorned their planes with them before embarking on suicide missions against US Navy vessels near Okinawa.

This aspect of cherry’s cultural biography is told by Naoko Abe in a book which focuses on Collingwood Ingram (1880–1981), an Englishman who was passionate about cherry trees and is known as ‘Cherry’ Ingram [Naoko Abe, ‘Cherry’ Ingram: The Englishman Who Saved Japan’s Blossoms (London: Chatto & Windus, 2019)]. Ingram knew Manabu Miyoshi (1861–1939) whose beautifully produced two-volume catalogue of wild mountain cherries was published in 1921. Hornel had this publication in his collection of Japanese souvenirs, and it is shown in the Plant Journeys exhibition at Broughton House.

Poems of cherry blossom viewing could also have a humorous twist to them as in the following one by Nishiyama Sōin (1605–82):

viewing cherry-blossoms

is also

a pain in the neck

[Stephen Addiss, The Art of Haiku: Its History through Poems and Paintings by Japanese Masters (Boston, MA: Shambala Publications, 2012), p. 69]

Dr Törmä’s research can be explored further in a new exhibition. Plant Journeys: Stories of East Asian Plants in Hornel’s Home and Garden, runs from now until 31 October at Broughton House, Kirkcudbright.