An Englishman who saved Japan’s cherry blossoms

In Japan, some remaining sakuramori, or ‘cherry guardians’ — the Japanese word for people who collected and protected cherry trees — struggled to maintain their collections of rare varieties (a treasonous activity) during the war. The 15th of a line of sakuramori, Toemon Sano, risked his life to protect a small selection of the rarest varieties, including one that Ingram had reintroduced to Japan just before the war; scions of the Taihaku (Great White), named after its huge white blossoms, were repeatedly sent by Ingram to Sano and another sakuramori, Masuhiko Kayama, but perished each time in transit. During the war, efforts to preserve species of cherry in both England and Japan read like efforts to preserve friendship — and the symbol of diversity and peace that the cherry tree once was — through desperate times.

Source: www.spectator.co.uk