Page 55 ment to this back part of the house, but they have this disadvantage, that they bear no fruit (Kaempfer 1712, book 5, chapter 4, p. 425).
With this last remark Kaempfer was the first Westerner with the later often-repeated complaint about the lack of edible fruits on Japanese flowering cherries. For the average commoner living in the cramped streets of Edo, a garden was a dream rather than something that had been seen from the inside. Nonetheless, nurseries and hawkers vending plants became part of the city scene, and in nooks and corners bonsai and other potted plants were cherished. A printing industry produced cheap books on plants and gardening, and these could be borrowed from traveling book-lenders as well. Without possessing a garden, the general public was informed on garden plants through books such as (Flower bed catalog) by Mizuno Motokatsu (1681). It contains a rare illustration and treats flowers, shrubs, and trees. It also lists forty flowering cherries with short descriptions, most still known today as names for cultivated cherries.
Figure 11 A first report from the West on Japan's flowering cherries (''Sรกkira"). The botanic report reached Europeans in the early eighteenth century, but the author's Latin was too concise and the beauty of Japanese flowering cherries was left beyond the reader's imagination. From Kaempfer (1712, book 5, p. 799).