The sakura obsession : the incredible story of the plant hunter who saved Japan's cherry blossoms Cover Image

Book

The sakura obsession : the incredible story of the plant hunter who saved Japan's cherry blossoms / Naoko Abe.

Summary:

"Collingwood 'Cherry' Ingram first fell in love with the sakura, or cherry tree, when he visited Japan on his honeymoon in 1907. So taken with the plant, he brought back hundreds of cuttings with him to England, where he created a garden of cherry varieties. In 1926, he learned that the Great White Cherry had become extinct in Japan. Six years later, he buried a living cutting from his own collection in a potato and repatriated it via the Trans-Siberian Express. In the years that followed, Ingram sent more than 100 varieties of cherry tree to new homes around the globe, from Auckland to Washington. As much a history of the cherry blossom in Japan as it is the story of one remarkable man, the narrative follows the flower from its adoption as a national symbol in 794, through its use as an emblem of imperialism in the 1930s, to the present-day worldwide obsession with forecasting the exact moment of the trees' flowering"-- Publisher's description.

Record details

ISBN: 9781524733575
ISBN: 1524733571
Physical Description: xix, 380 pages, 12 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), 1 map ; 22 cm
Edition: First United States edition.
Publisher: New York : Alfred A. Knopf, [2019].
Copyright: ©2019

Content descriptions

General Note:	"Translated by the author"--Dust jacket. "This is a Borzoi book published by Alfred A. Knopf"--Title page verso. "Originally published in Japan in different form as 'Cherry Ingram : the English saviour of Japan's cherry blossoms' by Iwanami Shoten, Tokyo, in 2016. This translation simultaneously published as '"Cherry" Ingram: the Englishman who saved Japan's blossoms' in Great Britain by Chatto & Windus, an imprint of Vintage Publishing, a division of Penguin Random House Ltd., London"--Title page verso.
Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references (pages 359-362) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:	part 1. The birth of a dream: Family ties ; Mayfair-by-the-Sea ; Triumphs and tragedies ; Enforced seclusion ; Japan beckons ; The rising sun ; The birds and the bees ; Ingram's war ; Birth of a dream -- part 2. Creation and collection: Twin quests ; The Dejima doctors ; Hunting plants ; Creation and collection ; The Hokusai Collection -- part 3. Saving the sakura: The Pilgrimage ; Twin pines ; Cherry Meccas ; Guardian of the cherries ; Wild-cherry hunting ; Saving the sakura ; Ingram's warning -- part 4. Taihaku's homecoming: The restoration quest ; Taihaku's homecoming ; Gambling with success ; A fairy-tale garden ; "Obscene" kanzan ; The cherry evangelist ; Darwin versus the Church ; The sounds of war -- part 5. Falling blossoms: Cherry blossom brothers ; Flowers of mass destruction ; Emperor worship ; The sakura ideology ; The Somei-yoshino invasion ; 100 million people, one spirit ; The cherry and the kamikaze ; Falling blossoms ; Tome's story -- part 6. Dark shadows: Children at war ; Black Christmas ; Protecting Benenden ; Ornamental cherries ; Dark shadows ; Cherries of a "traitor" ; Britain's cherry boom ; Ingram's "royal" cherries ; The Somei-yoshino renaissance -- part 7. Cherries of reconciliation: A garden of memories ; A peaceful death ; The Grange after Ingram ; Home and abroad ; The next generation of sakuramori -- Cherries of reconciliation -- Epilogue: Millennia trees ; The great wall of cherry blossoms -- Appendices: A: Key cherry varieties and wild cherry names ; B: Cherry blossom viewing locations.
Language Note:	In English, translated from the Japanese.