Ancient Cherry blossom Tree, "Takizakura" 三春滝桜

Waterfall Sakura of Miharu　「三春滝桜 」

My friend in Japan, Mr. Yonezawa sent me a photo of ancient cherry blossom tree, "Taki- zakura" or "Waterfall Cherry blossom" of Miharu city in Fukushima prefecture. This tree is considered one of the three great cherry blossom trees of Japan, and is believed to be 1,600 years old. When this tree was seedling, I believe Japan was still going through a prehistorical period, and in West, Rome was being ravaged by goths, Ostrogoths and Visigoths.

Mr. Yonezawa tells me that when he visited this tree, Japan was going through unusually cold spring- snowing while the tree was in full blossom! Mr. Yonezawa tells me its been 46 years since this situation has occurred here. Well, rain, sun or snow, I hope the Tree live through many years to come.

By the way two other great cherry blossom trees are "Jindai Cherryblossom" of Yamanashi Prefecture and "Usuzumi Cherry blossom" of Gifu Prefecture. As you can see from photos, Japanese go all out to see famous trees. I don't know whether this indicate unusual reverence of Japanese for natural wonders or that Japanese loves to go where crowds go- probably combination of both (laugh- sorry, a bit cynic here). Cynicism aside, great ancient trees do posses for me a sense of great spirituality, that I would probably push everyone aside to get to front of the crowd (laugh).

I posted this photo here because the theme of my blog is "Tree of Life''. I am very happy to receive photos of great trees so if you have one and you know my address, I would love to have them and post it here.

上の写真は福島県の三春桜で北海道の友人、米澤氏が東北に桜見物に行って撮ったものですが、この時は春なのに雪が降り、満開の時雪が降ったのは４６年ぶりだそうです。米澤氏によるとこの大木は日本三大桜の一つで芽がでてから１，６００年の年月がたっているそうです。これからも雪、雨、日に負けず、長年生きてほしいですね。

私のブローグのテーマが生命の樹なので、このような大木の写真などが送ってくると非常に嬉しいです。他にも大木を見つけたら、写真を送ってくださったら光栄です。