Blooming Cherry Trees

Nothing says Spring like the blooming cherry trees along the Tidal Basin in Washington, DC. I don’t make the hike through the pink blooms every year, but when I do it’s something special. This year I learned that the existence of the cherry blossoms is a story of rejection and perseverance of a lone travel writer.

In 1885, Eliza Scidmore had recently returned from a trip to Japan. She’d fallen in love with the Japanese culture of serene gardens with the cherry tree and its fleeting glory among her favorite features. She proposed the idea of transporting and replanting these resplendent saplings to brighten up the swamp-like area of the Tidal Basin. She was met with rejection by an unimpressed Army officer in charge of the area.

For the next twenty-four years, Eliza continued her quest (talk about perseverance) until her seedling of an idea was shared by arborist and U.S Department of Agriculture official, David Fairchild. Together, they created a possible design and approached First Lady Helen Taft with their idea to which she immediately offered her support. When a Japanese chemist named Jokichi Takamine learned of the idea, he donated the first batch of trees, which died a few years later of infestation and blight. That’s when, in 1912, the Japanese government offered their well-known gift of over three thousand trees.

The trees are not without their historical controversy. During the dark days of World War II and after the Pearl Harbor attack, four trees were chopped down by protestors. The trees were renamed, temporarily, as the “oriental” cherry trees to avoid a repeat attack. Approximately fifty years later, the trees were attacked once again, this time by well-toothed beavers who were subsequently relocated.

Nonetheless, the cherry trees have survived and flourished to over 3700 in and around the Tidal Basin and surrounding areas. During their elusive peak in the middle of March, thousands of visitors overtake the area and take in their glory, including me. I love their color, their fleeting pink, and the way they bring people out into the hopeful and warming air.

This year’s blossoms feature a bittersweet footnote—the demise of Stumpy, the half-dead, half-alive tree at the edge of the encroaching tides. In the immortal words of Miracle Max in “The Princess Bride,” this tree is “Mostly dead, but slightly alive.” This is the last year of ol’ Stumpy. He’ll be chopped down and his DNA used to create new, relocated trees in the National Park Service’s million-dollar renovation of the Tidal Basin area. Stumpy had persevered all these years and will leave behind a cheerful, and pink, legacy.