A Talk with the Author of “‘Cherry’ Ingram: The Englishman Who Saved Japan’s Blossoms”

Collingwood “Cherry” Ingram (Courtesy of the Ingram Family)

‘Taihaku’ at the Ainwick Garden, Northumberland, where a memorial ceremony is held each spring. (Courtesy of Margaret Whittaker)

Collingwood Ingram dressed for a hunt, aged about 16. (Courtesy of the Ingram family)

The Grange in spring 2015. Now an assisted-living home, it includes grounds featuring 40 Matsumae cherry trees planted to mark the millennium. (© Abe Naoko)

A ‘Taihaku’ blooms at the Grange. (© Abe Naoko)

‘Okame’ (left) and ‘Umineko’, named by Ingram after the black-tailed seagull common in Japan. (© Abe Naoko)

Funatsu Seisaku, photographed by Ingram in 1926. (Courtesy of the Ingram family)

A ‘Taihaku’ at the Grange. (© Abe Naoko)

A page from Ingram’s notebook describing the ‘Taihaku’. (Courtesy of the Ingram family)

‘Somei-yoshino’ blossoms along the moat at Takada Castle Site Park in Jōetsu, Niigata. (© Pixta)

Asari Masatoshi. (© Abe Naoko)

Cherries in bloom at Hokkaidō’s Matsumae Park. (© Abe Naoko)

Abe’s book in Japanese and English (© Nippon.com)

“Reconciliation cherries”: Matsumae varieties in a private nursery at Windsor Great Park. (© Abe Naoko)

Cherries in bloom at Matsumae Park, Matsumae, Hokkaidō. (© Abe Naoko)