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ic of the full bloom. It triggered an effort among local government officials throughout the country to achieve the same effect in their province or town. Cherries were planted at every new public building. City halls, town halls, and village halls, schools, and later the national railway stations, often built in modern, European architectural styles, brought the new state in a tangible form to the otherwise unchanged countryside. At these buildings large numbers of the cherry Prunus Ă—yedoensis were planted. As a symbol of progress and optimism, P. Ă—yedoensis thus became the nation's flower par excellence. Rare Garden Cherries Brought to Light With the fall of the shogun and his feudal government, the daimyo politicians lost their social standing and often their estates. Throughout the country and in Edo as well, their spacious gardens were used as tea or mulberry plantations, or public parks. Other gardens were destroyed to become the well-located construction site for public buildings. With the loss of its sponsors, horticulture could not be maintained at the incredibly high level it once was, and hundreds of cultivated cherries were in danger of becoming extinct. In Osaka many rare garden cherries were saved and planted along the Yodo River on the grounds of the new National Mint. This site has been opened to the public at every flowering season since 1883. It still is a major cherry attraction of the region, and some rare trees can be seen. In Tokyo a father and son from the Takagi nursery, located in the Somei District, took steps to conserve many cherries. The third in line, grandson Magoemon Takagi, inherited and actively enlarged the family's collection. In about 1880 this collection drew the attention of Kengo Shimizu (18401907), mayor of the little town of in the outskirts of Tokyo. The cherry 'Shimidsu-zakura' is named after the mayor because he wisely planted an embankment along the town's river with cherries, and just as wisely turned away from the ever-present Prunus Ă—yedoensis. Instead he approached the Takagi nursery and ordered a complete set of the collection's trees. In early spring of 1886 about eight kilometers along the Arakawa River were planted with a double line of cherries, about three thousand trees of seventy-eight cultivars. By the early twentieth century the trees had grown so big as to attract large crowds of tourists and day-trippers. The vis-