Elderly ladies in Nanjing love taking their photos beside them. Older men love just taking the photos, minus the elderly ladies. That’s the cherry blossoms now bursting forth in a blaze of colour. For our city is slap bang in the middle of the Cherry Blossom Appreciation Belt.
This is scientific stuff that’s the product of research at Nanjing Forestry University. A recently-released report from the University details the geographical dominance of the differing cherry blossom species, together with the schedule for their blossoming nationwide. And this year in Nanjing, our blossoms came a full week early.
Thanks to the distance from north to south in China, the cherry blossoming period varies by as much as 5 months, with a peak flowering period mainly concentrated in early spring.
Take Yunnan Province in the deep south for example. There, in that spiritual home of Dali, the cherry blossom saw its best viewing period begin as long ago as 1 December of last year.
From the earliest to the latest. In the far north, Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang Province and famed for its ice festival, won’t be seeing the little beauties until 23 April.
Then there is us in the middle, where surely there is no one in Nanjing who does not realise that the cherry blossom is in full bloom right now.
Dr. Yi Xiangui, who works in the Cherry Blossom Research Centre at Nanjing Forestry University, is writer of the report and told The Paper that the due date for Nanjing’s cherry blossom blooming is normally 23 March. As such, this year it was a little over a week early. “This was due to the general rise of temperature in the Yangtze River Basin in early March”, Dr. Yi said.
According to the Centre, cherry blossoms are mainly distributed in temperate areas of the northern hemisphere. Among approximately 100 species worldwide, China has the most abundant, with more than half the world’s cherry blossoms. Nearly one third are unique to China.
While these days in Nanjing you are hardly every far from a blooming cherry blossom, there are some locales which locals cherish for their annual blaze of pink.
In particular, head to Xuanwu Lake Park, especially Ying Zhou that is the largest island in the lake and Jiming Temple outside the Park. Elsewhere, cherry blossoms presently dominate Nanjing Foresty University and the Sino-Japanese Friendship Cherry Blossom Garden by Sun Yat-sen’s Mausoleum on Purple Mountain.
