The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan's Cherry Blossoms

by Naoko Abe Narrated by Ellen Archer, Nicholas Guy Smith

Overview

The incredible-and improbable-story of how an English eccentric saved Japan's beloved cherry blossoms from extinction.

Collingwood Ingram-known as “Cherry” for his defining passion-was born in 1880 and lived until he was a hundred, witnessing a fraught century of conflict and change. Visiting Japan in 1902 and again in 1907, he fell in love with the country's distinctive cherry blossoms, or*sakura, and brought back hundreds of cuttings with him to England, where he created a garden of cherry varieties.

On a 1926 trip to Japan to search for new specimens, Ingram was shocked to find a dramatic decline in local cherry diversity. A cloned variety was taking over the landscape and becoming the symbol of Japan's expansionist ambitions, while the rare and spectacular Taihaku, or “Great White Cherry,” had disappeared entirely.

But thousands of miles away, at Ingram's country estate, the Taihaku still prospered. After returning to Britain, the amateur botanist buried a living cutting from his own collection into a potato and repatriated it to Japan via the Trans-Siberian Express. Over the decades that followed, Ingram became one of the world's leading cherry experts and shared the joy of sakura both nationally and internationally, sending more than a hundred varieties of cherry tree to new homes around the globe, from Auckland, New Zealand to Washington, D.C.

As much a history of the cherry blossom in Japan as it is the story of one remarkable man, The Sakura Obsession follows the flower from its significance as a symbol of the imperial court, through the dark days of the Second World War, and up to the present-day worldwide fascination with this iconic blossom.

Editorial Reviews

APRIL 2019 - AudioFile

Ellen Archer narrates this audiobook with grace and precision. In addition, Englishman Nicholas Guy Smith delivers the long quotations from the story’s protagonist, Collingwood Ingram. The dual approach adds to this evocative and engrossing historical biography of the English plant collector whose passion for Japanese flowering cherry trees saved Japan’s most indelible species when industrialization, war, and pollution threatened to destroy them. Ingram, a self-taught botanist, ornithologist, and aficionado of Sakura (cherry blossoms), preserved the once extinct Taihaku (Giant White). Author Naoko Abe, a Japanese journalist based in England, celebrates a most worthwhile life and gives the listener a primer on Japanese culture and history while telling the story of the richly symbolic cherry tree. A.D.M. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

04/08/2019

Japanese journalist Abe (Dance Notations and Robot Motion) delivers a charming and informative biography of the eccentric English aristocrat Collingwood Ingram (1880–1981), who saved Japan’s cherry blossoms from extinction in the mid-20th century. After visiting Japan in 1902 and 1907, Ingram, a former ornithologist, fell in love with the country’s cherry blossom trees. When he returned to the country in 1926, he was heartbroken to learn that the diverse varieties were disappearing due to a national preference for one particular strain, leading to near-extinction of other types of cherry blossoms (“two decades of yearning for a country that... had taken his breath away had evaporated”). He became determined to document the species and take cuttings with the hope that they would flourish throughout the world. In 1945, Ingram wrote what “remains a horticultural classic and bible” on the subject, which encouraged growers worldwide to keep multiple species alive. Abe offers intriguing facts throughout, such as how cherry blossoms ended up in Washington, D.C. (botanist David Fairchild and his wife, Marian, the daughter of telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell, imported 150 trees; and in 1906, Tokyo’s mayor sent 2,000 trees as thanks for the U.S.’s involvement in the Russo-Japanese War). Ingram devoted himself to the cherry blossom until 1981, “when sensed that his life was drawing to a close.” Impeccably researched and lovingly crafted, Abe’s enlightening history will be a boon to horticultural enthusiasts. (Mar.)

From the Publisher

A portrait of great charm and sophistication, rich in its natural and historical range, guaranteeing that you won’t look at cherry blossoms the same way again.” —The Guardian

“Like the sakura itself, Ms. Abe’s book is a quiet pleasure—the story of a venerated flower and an English squire graced with the means to turn his passion into his vocation.” —The Wall Street Journal
 
“A splendid gift: at once a moving personal account as well as a cultural, social and political history of a turbulent period in world history.” —Nature
 
“A remarkable book. . . . Abe is excellent on the changing symbolism of cherries in Japan and the outlines of Japanese history and culture into which they fit.” —Financial Times
 
“Fascinating.” —New Scientist
 
“[A] lovely book. . . . Two tensions animate [The Sakura Obsession]: the difficulty of sending fragile scions around the world and successfully grafting them; and the wrenching historical context.” —The Economist
 
"An enchanting story about an Englishman’s attempts to preserve Japan’s rich cherry tree heritage in the face of rapid modernization.” —The Japan Times

“Impeccably researched and lovingly crafted. . . . A charming and informative biography of the eccentric English aristocrat Collingwood Ingram (1880–1981), who saved Japan’s cherry blossoms from extinction.” —Publishers Weekly
 
“An engaging biography of a man who ‘helped change the face of spring.’ . . . Abe shows that Ingram did more than any other ‘cherry guardian’ to keep alive varieties that would otherwise have been lost.” —The Sunday Times (London)
 
“Combining vast historical research, perceptive cultural interpretation, and a gift for keen, biographical storytelling, Abe’s study of one man’s passion for a singular plant species celebrates the beneficial impact such enthusiasts can have on the world at large.” —Booklist
 
“In this thoroughly researched book, journalist Naoko Abe tells two stories: one about the 1,200 [year] history of the Japanese cherry blossom, and the other about the English gardener who saved the iconic tree from extinction.” —Bustle
 
“Charming.” —Kirkus Reviews
 
“[The Sakura Obsession,] the story of a British botanist who is credited with being the saviour of the blossom’s many varieties, is . . . not only the tale of a man, or a tree, but of a nation.” —The Times (London)
 
“An admiring and engaging portrait of an eccentric British enthusiast, one of the last great amateur naturalists of the Edwardian Era.” —Natural History Magazine

APRIL 2019 - AudioFile

Ellen Archer narrates this audiobook with grace and precision. In addition, Englishman Nicholas Guy Smith delivers the long quotations from the story’s protagonist, Collingwood Ingram. The dual approach adds to this evocative and engrossing historical biography of the English plant collector whose passion for Japanese flowering cherry trees saved Japan’s most indelible species when industrialization, war, and pollution threatened to destroy them. Ingram, a self-taught botanist, ornithologist, and aficionado of Sakura (cherry blossoms), preserved the once extinct Taihaku (Giant White). Author Naoko Abe, a Japanese journalist based in England, celebrates a most worthwhile life and gives the listener a primer on Japanese culture and history while telling the story of the richly symbolic cherry tree. A.D.M. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2019-01-29

The story of the connection that linked one man, one flower, and two countries.

Lovers of the outdoors, especially gardeners, will find much to enjoy in Japanese journalist Abe's first English-language book, which won the Nihon Essayist Club Award in 2016. The author engagingly chronicles the travels and plant-collecting adventures of Collingwood Ingram (1880-1981). The Englishman, born to wealth in Victorian times, spent his sickly youth wandering the countryside, where he developed a passion for birds. In 1902, he traveled to Japan to see the birds there, which were similar to England's, and was swept up by the beauty of the country; the young man vowed to return. After World War I, he gradually lost interest in ornithology but began an obsession with horticulture, spurred by his family's move to Kent in 1919. On the property, he found two magnificent flowering Japanese cherry trees, leading him to a long life of discovering, preserving, breeding, grafting, and sharing rare varieties. Interspersed throughout the book are pieces of Japan's history over the last 2,000 years, and Abe provides sufficient detail to edify but never to bore. The author clearly shows the national importance of the cherry tree and how its perception changed with Westernization. Abe's statement that Japan is and was the world's most artistic nation is exemplified by the 250 varieties of cherry tree developed during that era. In the 1920s, as Japan nationalized and modernized, the importance of reviving failing cherry trees was forgotten; there was no money, urgency, or political will to save them. Thanks to the enterprising work of Ingram, however, "they bloomed around the world, in arboretums and parks, along city streets and riverbanks and in millions of suburban gardens." Indeed, writes the author, "Ingram had helped to change the face of spring."

This charming book shows how indebted the world is to Ingram for his work in creating "a shared treasure—the cherry blossom—for all to enjoy."

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169211931
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	03/19/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Part One
The Birth of a Dream
 
 
1. Family Ties
Years before the cherry blossoms charmed Collingwood Ingram, there lived a pure white albino jackdaw called Darlie. Darlie lived in Collingwood’s father’s hat, in a cupboard inside the hallway of the family’s luxurious eleven-room bungalow in Westgate-on-Sea, an English seaside town. Within the hat, the bird had fashioned a nest using fur pulled from Collingwood’s mother’s sable cap and bedroom slippers. In the nest, the jackdaw, drawn as she was to shiny objects, had stored a silver pen and some forks.

When a servant rang the gong to announce meals, Darlie flew to the dining room and hopped around the table, helping herself to morsels from each plate. Joining Darlie on these culinary circuits were four albino, or leucistic, sparrows – Isidor, Tiny, Wildie and Zimbi – along with Albine and Bil-Bil, two pink-eyed albino blackbirds that loved scoffing hard-boiled eggs. There were at least a dozen other albino birds in the house, including thrushes, a hedge sparrow, a redpoll, a starling and a swallow.

The genetic mutation that these birds carried left them with poor eyesight, poor hearing and an ever poorer chance of finding a mate, and their survival outdoors was not assured. So Collingwood and his mother, Mary, kept the birds indoors, where they lived as part of the family, even travelling with them on overseas trips. When Darlie died, Collingwood and Mary set aside a corner of a cabinet in her memory, in which they placed photographs of her, five of her eggs in cotton wool and a brooch containing her feathers. John Jenner Weir, a friend of Charles Darwin and a significant inspiration to the young Collingwood, would call Darlie ‘the most charming bird it has ever been my fate to meet with’.

History doesn’t record whether Jenner Weir had any comment about the Ingrams’ other compulsion: Japanese Chin dogs. Bred and prized by Japanese nobility and samurai lords, these flat-faced, wide-eyed pets resembled Persian cats in many ways. Having been brought to England after Japan opened its doors to the West in the 1850s, the tiny dogs became exotic fixtures in moneyed households throughout Europe. Queen Alexandra, for instance, who had married the future King Edward VII in 1863, had been given a Chin soon after her wedding and had helped to popularise the breed. The Ingrams so loved these dogs that at Westgate-on-Sea, their second home, they kept as many as thirty-five Chins at one time.
 
Mary Ingram and some of her Japanese Chin dogs 
Each Chin had distinct variations. Most were black and white, but others were red and white, or gold and black. After dinner, according to Collingwood Ingram’s cousin, Edward Stirling Booth, the Chins were ‘brought in like a set of children into the drawing room for a short time with two dog nurses in attendance. The dogs used to have very particular habits with regard to meals. Every dog had to be completely indulged. Occasionally one little dog would be rushed out and brought back again, and then another one would be rushed out and brought back again. This was another thing which visitors had to put up with.’ Booth also noted the presence in the Ingrams’ extensive garden of an African wildebeest.

Even in Victorian Britain, where the foibles of the wealthy were generally indulged, the Ingrams’ collections marked them as atypical. And there was no doubt, among the residents of Westgate-on-Sea, that the Ingrams were unusual. Unusually wealthy, too. The family head was Collingwood’s proud father, Sir William James Ingram, the Liberal Party’s Member of Parliament for Boston, Lincolnshire. He was also managing director of The Illustrated London News, one of Britain’s most influential and popular newspapers. Willie, as his friends called him, was an energetic big thinker, much like his father Herbert, the newspaper’s founder. Sir William’s many critics had other descriptions for him, considering him arrogant, litigious and unforgiving, as indeed they had his father. Further detractors included Sir William’s five sisters and his mother, Ann, whose remarriage in 1892 at the age of eighty would plunge the family into open warfare.

Sir William’s wife, Mary Eliza Collingwood Ingram, was an Australian whose accent had been smoothed out by elocution lessons in London. The couple, both passionate about birds and the natural world, had met in London and married in November 1874 at Christ Church, Paddington. Their three boys, who called their parents Min and Pids, completed the quintet. The eldest, Herbert or Bertie, and his brother, Bruce, attended an elite boarding school, Winchester College, their father’s alma mater.

Collingwood, the baby of the family and a sickly child, had never attended school. So while Bertie studied Virgil’s Aeneid, Collingwood roamed the countryside, studying birds – wagtails and warblers, whinchats and wrynecks. And while Bruce learned about Whistler’s Mother and Constable’s The Hay Wain, Collingwood learned to whistle the whit-whit call of the quail in the marshes of East Sussex. From his earliest childhood, birds were Collingwood’s fixation. At the age of three, his Norwegian nurse had held him over a shrub to look into a hedge sparrow’s nest containing a clutch of turquoise-blue eggs. ‘The study of birds,’ he later recalled, ‘and in particular the study of their nests and young became an obsession with me – an obsession that persisted for at least half of my life.’

Nature was the boy’s religion, and Darwinism his creed. And one day in 1891, quite by chance, he ran into John Jenner Weir, one of Britain’s most accomplished ornithologists and botanists. That meeting, Ingram recalled, was a transformational, almost evangelical experience: ‘The manner in which I came to know that stranger has remained an inexplicable episode in my life.’
 
I was only about 10, a shy introspective child who in normal circumstances would have never dreamt of accosting a perfect stranger. Yet that was exactly what I did. I was wandering about the countryside by myself in search of birds, when I saw coming towards me, also alone, an elderly gentleman dressed from head to foot in urban black. He might have been anything – a lawyer, a doctor, a businessman.

There was therefore no ostensible reason why I should have suddenly felt irresistibly drawn towards the man. Was it telepathy or was it intuition? I know not. Anyhow, something seemed to tell me that here at last I had found a kindred spirit. Impelled by an uncontrollable urge, I walked straight up to him, and without so much as a word of explanation, bluntly asked him if he was interested in birds – a fatuous question since I already instinctively knew the answer.
 
In fact, Jenner Weir kept birds and butterflies in an aviary in his garden in south London, where he experimented to see which variety and colour of caterpillars the birds would eat. Darwin cited a number of Jenner Weir’s observations in The Descent of Man and other books. For three formative years after they met, Jenner Weir lent Collingwood materials and books about the natural world. He died suddenly in March 1894, aged seventy-one, when his young admirer was just thirteen, but his influence lasted throughout Ingram’s life. In his final publication, Random Thoughts on Birds, self-published when he was ninety-eight years old, Ingram wrote of his ‘deepest gratitude for his [Jenner Weir’s] encouragement’.

Collingwood was already passionate about collecting all varieties of fauna that interested him. His meetings and correspondence with Jenner Weir further encouraged those pastimes. Diverse species must be protected and preserved: that, to Collingwood, was a given. Indeed, it was variety that made life so rich and fulfilling for him.

Darwin’s theories of evolutionary adaptation through natural selection – the ‘survival of the fittest’ – which Collingwood discussed with Jenner Weir, argued against the natural survival of the family’s albino birds, yet survive they did, at least in small numbers; just as Collingwood himself had defied the odds at his birth and would live for more than 100 years.

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