Sato-zakura group
This variety has an interesting history. It was lost for over a 100 years in its native Japan, until a specimen was found growing in a British garden in 1923. Cuttings from this tree were subsequently used to re-introduce it into Japan.
It is the largest flowered cherry known with its bright white blossoms reaching up to 60mm across. The tree has a wide spreading habit – the ones in Fulham Cemetery are much wider than they are tall!
This is the only remaining specimen in what used to be an avenue of 3 Tai Haku cherries and 4 hawthorns (of which 1 remains). There is 1 other veteran Tai Haku in the cemetery at the top of the north central path. They were probably planted at the same time as the pink "Kanzan" cherries, making them around 70 years old.
New trees: 5 new Tai Haku cherries have been planted in 2024.
This used to be an avenue of 3 trees. Here you can still see them in 2011
For Britain's love for Japanese cherry trees we can credit the botanist Collingwood “Cherry” Ingram, born in 1880. He first visited Japan in 1902, which piqued his interest in the country’s culture and cherry trees, which were declining due to industrialisation and monoculture. He collected as many as he could, sending over 50 endangered varieties back to England.
By 1926 he was considered an authority on Japanese cherries and was invited to address the Japanese Cherry Society. During this visit he was shown a painting (over 120 years old) of a magnificent large-blossomed cherry that had disappeared from cultivation, despite long searching. He immediately recognised the blossom as one growing in a garden back in Sussex which he had named Tai Haku.
Cuttings from this tree were successfully sent via the Trans-Siberian express and thus reintroduced to Japan – and all around the world. Thus Ingram became known as "the Englishman who saved Japan's blossoms" – the subtitle of biography by Naoko Abe, translated in 2019.
Tai Haku - Painting by Collingwood Ingram
The Fulham Cemetery Friends added this tree tag to help visitors learn about the cemetery’s interesting trees.
This is just a trial and is not the final tree tag design. We will aim for something more durable and discreet.