The 1912 gift of 3,020 flowering
cherry trees from the city
of Tokyo to Washington was a
milestone in the development
of relations between the
United States and Japan.
It grew into an act of
diplomacy and goodwill
that would put a lasting mark
on the Washington
landscape and community.
The idea of planting
cherry trees
in the city's new Potomac
Park had been proposed
about 25 years earlier by
Washington author, journalist,
and world traveler Eliza Ruhamah
Scidmore, who became enamored
with cherry blossoms
during trips
to Japan that began in 1885.
The dream finally took root
in 1909, when first lady Helen
"Nellie" Taft, prodded
by a note from Scidmore,
took up the project as
part of her own plans
for developing Potomac Park.
Mrs. Taft replied to
Scidmore on April 7, 1909:
"I have taken the matter up
and am promised the trees,
but I thought perhaps it would
be best to make an avenue
of them, extending down
to the turn in the road."
[voice] With support from
Tokyo's mayor, Yukio Ozaki,
two thousand trees were
shipped to Washington
and arrived in early 1910.
Unfortunately, most had to be
burned because of infestation.
The Japanese government
resolved to send a fresh,
even larger shipment of
trees that would be free
of diseases and pests.
A committee of experts worked
closely with Seisaku Funatsu,
a cherry tree grower at Tokyo's
Arakawa River embankment,
to select and raise trees
for the second gift.
Funatsu selected twelve
varieties of trees,
which were grafted to specially
selected rootstock and nurtured
for a year at the Imperial
Horticultural Station
of Okitsu before being
shipped to Washington.
The second gift included Somei
Yoshino, ten different varieties
of double-flowered
(or manifold) trees,
one variety with
yellow blossoms,
and some varieties
with fragrance.
Two years later, after
that rocky start, a second,
successful shipment of 3,020
trees, selected from the banks
of Tokyo's Arakawa River,
arrived in Washington
in good health.
Most of the cherry trees were
planted in the new Potomac Park,
including around
the Tidal Basin.
This sightseer map,
published just two years
after the first cherry
blossom trees were planted,
features the Potomac Park
Speedway, which was envisioned
as an ideal site for a "field of
cherries" by early proponents.
The cherry trees along the Tidal
Basin were well established
by 1918, when this
drawing was made.
Thanks to the painstaking work
of the National Park Service,
about 125 trees remain from
the original 1912 gift.
Fresh plantings over time
have included 676 new trees
between 1986 and 1988.
Four hundred more, propagated
from the original 1912 trees,
were planted between
2002 and 2006.
Tokyo's gift of trees
to Washington more
than a century ago remains
a source of joy, delight,
peaceful contemplation, and
beauty for Washingtonians
and countless visitors
to the nation's capital.
The annual blossoms have
inspired events and traditions
that salute natural beauty and
the cultivation of friendship
between the people of the
United States and Japan.
Learn more about Tokyo's
gift of trees and friendship
in Cherry Blossoms
Sakura Collections
from the Library of Congress.
Available in bookstores
and libraries everywhere.