After 95 years, a Taihaku cherry tree which is the offspring of a cherry tree at ‘Cherry’ Ingram’s garden in Kent, has been planted in the Tokyo garden of the great grandson of Japan’s most renowned cherry expert, Seisaku Funatsu.
Collingwood Ingram had met Funatsu in 1926 and vowed to return the Taihaku tree to Japan, where it was extinct. Funatsu died before the tree was returned in 1932 to Kyoto.
So Keiichi Higuchi, a cherry researcher and friend of the Funatsu family, has now planted an offspring of the Kyoto tree in the garden of Funatsu’s great grandson. Finally, the Funatsu family can enjoy Japan‘s great white cherry.
Keiichi HIguchi , left, and Hideko Funatsu, the wife od the great grandson of Seisaku Funatsu, planting the offspring of ‘Taihaku’.
