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

Abe, Naoko, author.
2019
QK31.I54 A2313 2019 (Mapit)
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Title
The sakura obsession : the incredible story of the plant hunter who saved Japan's cherry blossoms / Naoko Abe.
Author
Abe, Naoko, author.
Uniform Title
Cherī inguramu. English
Edition
First United States edition.
ISBN
9781524733575 (hardcover)
1524733571 (hardcover)
Published
New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2019.
Language
English
Language Note
In English, translated from the Japanese.
Description
xix, 380 pages, 12 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), 1 map ; 22 cm
Call Number
QK31.I54 A2313 2019
Dewey Decimal Classification
580.92
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.
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.
Record Appears in
On-Campus Resources > Books
All Resources
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: 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.

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