100-year-old King Cherry Blossom tree origin dispute

Among a variety of Korean Cherry Blossoms, one of the most spectacular flowering trees is the King Cherry Blossoms, uniquely growing naturally in Korea.

In April each year, the King Cherry Blossoms bloom like popcorns on bare branches before leaves burst out of buds in early spring all over Korea.

It wasn't until the early 20th century when the rest of the world learned about the Korean King Cherry Blossoms.

Upon encountering an ancient forest of King Cherry Blossom trees in Hallasan mountain in 1908, French botanist and Catholic priest Father Emile Joseph Taquet (1873~1952) sent samples of the Korean King Cherry Blossom tree to his colleagues in Japan and to German researcher Dr. Bernhard Adalbert Emil Koehne in Berlin. That is how the King Cherry tree was named scientifically “Prunus yedoensis var. Nudiflora.”

In evolutionary biology, hybridization is part of the process which results in increased plant diversity. The Korean King Cherry tree is such a product of nature.

The King Cherry Blossom tree entered the American English lexicon in 1912 as the Yoshino cherry when 1,800 of the 3,020 Cherry Blossom trees were donated by the City of Tokyo to Washington, DC, to be planted in the U.S. capital, were a King Cherry variant. Cherry Blossoms are considered as the unofficial national flower of Japan.

For the next hundred years, Washington saw many Yoshino cherry trees come and go, as they have a considerably short lifespan. The older dying trees are often replaced with old branches grafted onto new roots of another tree as they don’t reproduce through seedlings.

Koreans have historically valued cherry blossom trees for their valuable lumber. Cherry Blossom tree lumber has been highly sought after to make bows, musical instruments and quality furniture. In Jeju dialect, the word Saogi or Saok refers to lumber from all cherry blossom trees. Jeju Island, along with Daedoonsan Mountain in Haenam, Jeolla Province, is the only known natural habitat in the world for the native King Cherry Blossoms trees.

For decades, the presence of the King Cherry tree habitat gave Korean researchers bragging rights that the origin of the Japanese Yoshino cherry trees might have been Korea, as Japan was unable to locate not a single natural habitat for its famed Yoshino Cherry trees over the years.

But science finally resolved the origin question.

Genome sequence analysis shows that while Korean King Cherry tree is a freak of nature, a product of common Korean Sargent cherry (Prunus sargentii Rehder) as the father and another common Weeping Cherry (Prunus pendula f. ascendens 'Rosea') as the mother tree.

Sargent Cherry has always been a favorite tree for Koreans for its excellent lumber. More than 64% of the 81,352 wooden printing blocks of the treasured 13th century Tripitaka Koreana are carved on Sargent Cherry lumber.

Tripitaka documents all known human knowledge and Buddha's teachings up until that point into three categories of Buddhism teaching: scriptures, rules and Buddha’s own words. The Palman Daejanggyeong meticulously chronicles them all in a whopping set of 52,330,152 Hanja characters carved on both sides of the 81,352 wooden printing blocks.

Each of the Palman Daejanggyeong printing blocks measures in the range of 68 to 78 centimeters in width, 24 centimeters in height and 2.7 to 3.3 centimeters in thickness.

The Japanese Yoshino Cherry was a man made variant, with Oshima zakura (Prunus speciosa) as the father and the Japanese Weeping Cherry (Prunus itosakura) as the mother.

While their blossoms look alike, close comparisons reveal subtle differences. The Yoshino Cherry flowers have a longer stem with a cup-like base, while the Korean King Cherry blossoms have shorter flower stems with a wedge-shaped base to its blossoms.

Because the King Cherry blossoms don’t reproduce, grafting its branches to other vibrant Sargent Cherry or Weeping Cherry has been the only way it has been spreading all over Korea, albeit in the Japanese variant since the colonial period (1910-45).

By 2013, there were only 14 known original ancient King Cherry trees in Hallasan, with hundreds of thousands of King Cherry trees with other variants on the island.

Hallasan Eco-forest researchers had successfully perfected cloning DNA samples from one of the oldest remaining original King Cherry trees discovered along the slopes of Hallasan mountains and successfully planted the saplings in 2012.

The Eco-forest lab now produces 200-300 saplings each month, and city workers are planting them next to aging King Cherry variant trees along the roads in Jeju Island, aiming to have the foreign variants replaced over time.

In 2016, researchers discovered a previously unknown native King Cherry tree in Hallasan Mountain, estimated to be up to about 330 years old. While the ancient tree is being considered for a Natural Monument designation for its own protection, the tree's location remains undisclosed to the public.

Father Taquet, who arrived as a missionary to Korea on Jan 5, 1898, sent out over 5,000 plant samples abroad with proceeds going to his church coffers. The French priest never left Korea and was buried under his Korean name, Um Taek-ki, in Daegu upon his passing in 1952.

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