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grant. Petals five or even up to eight, rarely with a few petaloids, round or slightly ovate, 1820 × 1619 mm, with irregular wrinkles and undulations at the emarginate, occasionally fimbriate, top end(!). There is one pistil, perfect, 1213 mm long, about as long as the longest stamens. The calyx is campanulate, 8 × 4 mm, with a deep red shade; there is a distinct transition from pedicel to calyx. Sepals are elongated and triangular, 7 × 4 mm to 9 × 4.5 mm, some serration, or a few teeth, reddish. Styles have a rather large stigma. Flowering season is from mid- to late April. 'Washi-no-o' has a triploid set of chromosomes (2n = 24). 'Yae-akebono' The Japanese word akebono ("daybreak") carries literary connotations in Japan because of a classic poetic phrase, the opening sentence of a famous diary ( , by a noblewoman, Sei, ca. 1002 A.D.). The diary begins with Haru ha akebono, which translates as "Spring means morning twilight." The promising, pinkish-orange twilight of spring associates nicely with a cherry. There are two plants with the name 'Akebono': a rather recent cultivar of Prunus ×yedoensis that was developed in the United States, and a cherry mentioned in seventeenth century Japanese sources, which was described as P. serrulata f. lucifera by Miyoshi, but is now believed to be extinct. 'Yae-akebono' ("the double daybreak cherry") is more recent and was found among the cherries along the Arakawa River at the end of the nineteenth century. It was also offered for export in Japanese catalogs; its flowers are described as "very large, semi-double, rose, fragrant" by the Hakoneya nursery (Wada 1937). 'Yae-akebono' is one of the semi-double, pink-flowered cherries that is very similar to 'Fukurokuju', as was shown by Kawasaki (1994), who gives it as Prunus lannesiana 'Versicolor'. Apart from minor variations in millimeters, the main difference Kawasaki found was that the sepals of 'Yae-akebono' have some serration. 'Yae-akebono' also has, according to Kawasaki, slightly fewer petals than 'Fukurokuju'. Miyoshi described it under the name P. serrulata f. versicolor and gives twelve petals for the flowers of both forms. His Latin versicolor means that the color of the flowers is not uniform. Indeed the inner petals are various shades of pink, presenting flowers between an almost pure white and a light pink. The outer petals,