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from P. incisa ×speciosa ×P. sargentii and P. incisa ×speciosa ×P. campanulata. Natural hybrids of P. apetala ×P. serrulata var. pubescens and P. incisa ×P. pendula f. ascendens are reported by Ohba (1992a), and horticultural hybrids of P. campanulata ×P. serrulata var. speciosa and P. campanulata ×P. pseudo-cerasus are reported by Kobayashi (1992). An impressive list of hybrids and hybrids of hybrids (of hybrids) is given in Kawasaki (1994, pp. 333337). Flowering cherries are notoriously promiscuous. A visit to the Tama Forest Science Garden in Tokyo is a very bewildering experience when one sees the garden's almost three hundred cherries in the blossom season. A visit, or better a few visits throughout the year, to see the fall colors, and autumn-bloomers or winter-bloomers as well, gives an impression of the enormous range of forms of the Japanese cherries. Yet, one has not seen them all. Traveling through Japan, one may see a cherry that has a striking blossom never seen before. Old trees in the countryside, far from nurseries or famous gardens, must have started as just one peculiar plant brought from the forest by an unnamed person in forgotten times; as a consequence it is of singular genetic stock. Only one specimen usually is planted, although sometimes a few are planted close to each other or a young tree is trained to replace the old one when it dies. Such countryside cherries have a profound meaning to the history of the place where they stand and are planted in memory of an event. They are usually given richly colored names full of sacred lore or wistful memory. Descriptions of these folk cherries appear in magazines or papers of local horticultural clubs and sometimes also in scientific journals, but usually the trees are not propagated for wider cultivation. Rather, it is felt they should stay where they are, telling their unique story. Thus, the vast Japanese countryside has originated some famed and useful ornamental cherries thanks to nameless villagers who, upon finding a peculiar cherry in the forest, planted it in commemoration at a road crossing, or brought it to their village temple, or donated it to a local mayor who could in turn present it to his feudal lord. Such valuable donations, not to be expressed in money, were freely generated by the lush and generous nature of Japan. The practice of introducing peculiar plants to cultivation has continued from the primary forests of early civilization to today. In the 1960s, for instance, a chrysanthemum-flowered form of Prunus incisa was found among a wild stand and is now in cultivation as 'Fuji-kiku-zakura'. Besides such random discoveries from wild material, the actively bred