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About Japanese Cherry Names The International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants supports the use of fancy names for cultivars, in our case the old Japanese names. These have priority over the more recently invented Latin attributes that are given as synonyms in the Cherry Name Index and in the descriptions. To determine priority of names, we have relied on the thoroughly historical nomenclature study of Jefferson and Wain (1984) and on other, Japanese, sources. The spelling of Japanese names in Roman alphabet now commonly uses the Hepburn system. 'Kanzan' is the Hepburn romanization, whereas 'Kwanzan' has become an obsolete spelling. In some cases we have become so used to older spellings that they were never adapted to the Hepburn system. Therefore one finds Ohwi, Shimidsu, and Koidzumi, for example, although at present one would rather spell these names as , Shimizu, and Koizumi. Much Japanese is written with Chinese characters that are often pronounced in imitation of the Chinese. For example, the two characters that read as Guan-shan in Chinese become Kan-zan in Japan's "Chinese" reading. The vernacular Japanese reading of the same characters is Seki-yama, so that 'Kanzan' and 'Sekiyama' are synonyms of a linguistic origin. Cherry names were often used in literary prose, and playing with the characters of these names has given many synonyms as described in the text. Vowels should sometimes be prolonged in pronunciation. For instance, 'Fugenzo' should be pronounced with a prolonged o as ' '. In the descriptions, when the cultivar name is explained, we have indicated whether such a prolonged pronunciation is required. It is, however, hardly distinguished by English ears, and for practical reasons, it is perfectly all