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Williams, Oregon, United States, gave me an overview of current cherries in American nurseries, while Mr. P. Schalk of the Martin v.d. Bijl Nurseries in Opheusden, the Netherlands, reported on the state of the art in this country. The staff and curator Mr. J. J. Bos of the Wageningen Botanic Gardens maintain a splendid flowering cherry collection in the Belmonte Arboretum and helped with source material and with solving various practical problems. Mr. Matthi Forrer and Mr. Ken Vos (Rijksmuseum v. Volkenkunde, Leiden, the Netherlands), Ms. Judy Glattstein (The New York Botanical Garden, United States), Lady Jelena De Belder and family (Arboretum Kalmthout and Hemelrijk, Belgium), and Mr. Gilles Baud Berthier (MusĂŠe Albert Kahn, Boulogne, France) helped with this project. Finally, Ms. Noriko Nakamura gave this research her daily support and was of great help in collecting cherries and making many study drawings; a selection of these is gratefully used to illustrate this book. Research was made possible in the Netherlands by the Wageningen Agricultural University and in Japan by the University of Art and Design, the International Research Center for Japanese Studies, and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Sciences. The reader will note throughout the book various traditional Japanese family crests that take flowering cherries as a motif. The photos were taken by the author, Mr. Arie Peterse, and Mr. Kense Kuitert at the following cherry collections: Experimental Station of the Flower Association of Japan, Ibaraki; Tama Forest Science Garden of the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute (FFPRI), Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries, Tokyo; Botanic Gardens of the Agricultural University, Wageningen, Netherlands; Opheusden, Nursery Peterse, Netherlands; Uryuyama Campus Forest and surroundings of the University of Art and Design, Japan; Botanic Garden of Prefecure, Japan; Ninna-ji Temple and Hirano Shrine, , Japan; and Arboretum Kalmthout, Antwerp Province, Belgium. WYBE KUITERT