Awesome blossoms inside the Beltway

March 27, 1997

(CNN) -- The first pink and white blossoms on Washington's Japanese cherry trees are an annual signal to the winter-weary that spring has arrived in the nation's capital. Thousands of Japanese cherry petals transform West Potomac Park into a wonderland of soft, cascading color.

The roots of Washington's spectacular springtime tradition date to 1909, when Japan gave a batch of cherry trees to the United States as a gift. Because they carried insects and fungi, the Department of Agriculture destroyed them. Three years later, Japan presented 3,000 more cherry trees, and in a simple ceremony on March 27, 1912, First Lady Mrs. William Howard Taft and Viscountess Chinida of Japan planted the first two.

Today, fewer than 200 of the original Japanese cherry trees remain. They stand among more than 3,700 others along the north bank of the Tidal Basin in East and West Potomac Park.

Most of the trees are Japan's popular cultivated cherry tree, the single-flowering Yoshino (Prunus x yedoens). The white-petaled Yoshino are primarily located on the basin's western edge and are the first to explode with blossoms. About two weeks later, the pink double-blossoms of the Kwanzan (Prunus serrulata 'Kwanzan') variety awaken along the eastern edge.

A mild winter gave Washingtonians plenty of reason to rejoice this year; an early sea of pink and white has already spread across the Tidal Basin. The peak blooms in 1997 were expected on March 26, ahead of the average annual blooming date of April 5. The earliest recorded blooming date was March 15, 1990, and the latest was April 18, 1958.