The Garden Nurseries, Penn Valley, Narberth, Pa. 
5 
History of Japanese Roseflowering Cherries 
The following is an extract taken from Circular No. 3/, United States Department of Agriculture, 
Washington, D. C., by Paul Russell, Assistant Botanist. 
Since ancient times tlie Japanese Kave looked on the flowering cherries 
w ith a feeling of admiration closely akin to reverence and have given the 
utmost care to growing and propagating the hner types. At the outset only 
the single-flowering types were known, but later the douhle-flowering kinds, 
which probably originated as sports, were given special attention and 
perpetuated by grafting. 
“The earliest introduction into Europe of a double-flowered Japanese 
Cherry appears to have been in 1822, when Samuel Brookes, a nursery¬ 
man at Ball s Pond, Newington Green, England, introduced from Canton, 
China, a cherry with double white flowers. This was described in 1850 
by the En glish Botanist Bindley as Prunus Serrulata. The wild single- 
flowered form of this variable species is reported to be growing wild from 
Hupeh, China, through Chosen to southern Japan. Miyoshi considers this 
cherry to be the same species as the majority of the cultivated Japanese 
varieties. Soon after 1850 1 iving plants of flowering cherries began to reach 
Europe from Japan, but, except for isolated specimens representing only a 
few varieties, these ornamental trees are still comparatively little known 
in that part of the world. 
“In the United States the hrst recorded introduction of the double¬ 
flowering cherries was in March, 1862, when George Rogers Hall brought 
in 15 varieties, giving them to Parsons & Co., Flushing, Long Is land, N. Y, 
These apparently have since entirely disappeared. According to Wilson, 
of the Arnold Arboretum, Jamaica Plain, Mass., the hrst introduction of a 
single-flowering Japanese Cherry was in 1890, when Dr. Will iam S. 
Bigelow sent seeds of the Yamasakura variety (Prunus serrulata sachalin- 
ensis) to the Arnold Arboretum. One Pennsylvania nursery claims to have 
listed double-flowering varieties since 1890. In 1905 the Office of Foreign 
Plant Introduction of the Bureau o f Plant I ndustry received from Japan, 
through the late Barbour Lathrop and David Fairchild, a collection of 50 
named varieties of flowering cherries. In the following year a collection of 
50 named varieties was received from the Yokohama Nursery Co., Yoko¬ 
hama, Japan. The propagation and distribution of these and later importa¬ 
tions have been important factors in establishing the flowering cherries in 
the eastern United States. Increasing interest in these plants also led to 
