Cherry Blossoms at Mount Yoshino

Mount Yoshino in Nara Prefecture carries about thirty thousand cherry trees, of some two hundred kinds. They were not planted for display. The mountain is a centre of the Shugendo mountain religion, and the trees were given as offerings to Zao Gongen, the deity enshrined there, and tended as his sacred trees. That has gone on for centuries, and the mountain has filled up with them.

The trees stand in four bands up the slope, known from the bottom as Shimo Senbon, Naka Senbon, Kami Senbon and Oku Senbon, the lower, middle, upper and inner thousand. The word senbon means a thousand trees, and the mountain is also described as ichimoku senbon, a thousand at a glance.

The four bands differ in height, in the lie of the land, in how much sun they get and in their soil, so they do not flower together. The blossom begins at the foot and moves upward, and from the lowest zone to the innermost takes about a month. The trees themselves also vary, having been planted piecemeal over centuries. Saying the mountain is in full bloom does not mean every tree is out at once.

The variety most people picture is the Somei Yoshino, which was bred in Edo and carries the name Yoshino, but it is not what grows here. About eight in ten of the trees on the mountain are mountain cherries, and most of those are the white mountain cherry. The difference is visible: a Somei Yoshino opens its flowers on bare branches, while a mountain cherry puts out a few leaves first and flowers among them, so the effect is paler and less uniform.

While the blossom lasts the trees are lit after dark in the lower and upper zones, and the gates and halls of the temples and shrines along the road are lit as well.