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Alishan cherry blossom season starts

Visitors to the Alishan Forest Recreational Area walk through the area and admire the cherry blossoms yesterday. PHOTO: HSIEH YIN-CHUNG, TAIPEI TIMES

The one-month-long Alishan cherry blossom season began yesterday in the Alishan mountain range in Chiayi County, with visitors welcomed by cherry trees festooned with thousands of the beautiful pink and white blossoms.

Of the great variety of cherry trees found in the Alishan area, the white-blossomed Yoshino cherry trees from Japan are the most famous.

The Chiayi Forest District Office said the history of planting Yoshino cherry trees in the area can be traced back to 1903 during the Japanese occupation.

In 1918, the Japanese imported over 900 Yoshino cherry saplings, planting them in the area around what is now the Chaoping train station. Three years later, those trees blossomed at the same time, marking Alishan's first cherry blossom season.

Since then, local businesses and park associations have continued to introduce many varieties of cherry trees from Japan. As a result, the number of cherry trees, known in Japanese as sakura, have increased to around 6,000 in the region, forest officials said.

At the moment, most of the Yoshino cherries are still in bud and are not expected to bloom until the end of this month, the officials said, but they added that visitors can still observe other varieties of red and pink cherry blossoms, as well as other flowers such as camellia, caval vine and azaleas.

To ease traffic congestion in the Alishan forest area, a free shuttle bus service also began yesterday that will operate on holidays throughout the blossom season.
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