Kursar

Kursar is the star of the early-season flowering cherries, and usually the first to flower. It features an intense display of large single deep-pink blossom, borne on bare branches in late February and early March - when most other trees are still completely dormant.

The blossom is quickly followed by young bronze leaves.

The tree grows with a neat tidy compact habit, and is one of the more cold-hardy flowering cherries.

While spring is the main event, as it is for most flowering cherries, Kursar also offers value in the autumn too - the leaves take on red - gold tints.

History

Kursar is one of the many flowering cherries developed by Captain Collingwood Ingram, a 20th century English enthusiast who became the leading western authority on the Japanese Flowering Cherries. It is a hybrid of Prunus campanulata (the Formosan cherry) and Prunus nipponica var kurilensis (named with reference to the Kurile islands, lying to the north east of Japan). It inherits many of the characteristics of the Fomosan cherry, notably the small upright form and dark pink blossom - but is much hardier.

Collingwood Ingram named his new variety 'Kursar', a combination of Prunus kurilensis and another flowering cherry species, Prunus sargentii - the two species he thought he had crossed when raising it. He later realised he had made a mistake - but kept the name.

Kursar characteristics

• Gardening skillBeginner
• Country of originUnited Kingdom
• Period of origin1900 - 1949

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