[SAKURA] How to tell the difference between a Cherry Blossom, a Plum Blossom, and a Peach Flower

It’s finally April, and spring is definitely in the air, and you know what that usually means in Japan, right? Yes, it’s sakura season! However, it seems that many foreigners (and some Japanese) tend to confuse the sakura, or cherry blossoms, with two other pink 5-petal flowers, which also bloom almost at the same time.

These three Japanese flowers are all beautiful, they are all pink, they all have five petals, and they all signal the start of spring, so its a bit understandable that many get confused with telling them apart, however, they don’t all bloom at the same time. Plum blossoms come first in mid-February, followed by the peach flowers in mid-March, and then sakura (late March).

Another way to tell them apart is the shape of their petals, as plum blossoms (left) have a shorter petal, peach flowers (center) have a pointed petal, and there is a cleft in a sakura petal (right), as Japanese twitter user, @TECHNOuchi, pointed out:

You can also tell them apart with the branches of the trees. Plum blossoms (left) develop individually, and they grow directly on the branches themselves, which means that the flowers don’t have any stems. Peach Flowers (center) usually bloom in pairs, and have short stems. In contrast, sakura have long stems and form multiple-flower clusters, which make them a lot more dramatic.

Finally, when it comes to color, while all three can come in the familiar “sakura pink” color, they can also have other variants, such as the sakura (top) and plum blossoms (center), which can come in a shade of white. However, only the plum blossom can come in a shade of purple.

So there you have it, so next time you go to Japan around March or April, you can now be able to tell these three apart!

Source: Rocket News 24