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Botanical Name: Prunus x incam 'Okame'
Common Name: Okame Flowering Cherry
Origin: Garden Origin
Location: CNE
Notable Feature: Offers stunning color to the late winter/early spring landscape. One of the earliest cherries to bloom. It is ornamentally effective not only during bloom but after the petals have dropped, displaying its red calyces and reddish flower stalks for an additional few weeks.
Habit: A short, bushy, deciduous tree that tends to branch low. It is very upright and vase-shaped when young, becoming rounded with maturity. Ultimate height is around 20 to 30 feet with a canopy spread of 20 feet.
Flower: The perfect flowers (bisexual) give a 2 to 3 week display of rosy pink blossoms on bare branches in early spring. Borne in clusters of 2 to 3, the bright pink buds give way to 5-petalled flowers with deep red calyces. Borne in spectacular masses.
Fruit: Does not commonly set fruit.
Foliage: The lustrous dark green leaves are slender, pointed, and 3” long with toothed margins, turning a colorful bronze-orange-red in fall. The foliage emerges well after the flowering ceases.
Bark: Polished reddish brown bark with prominent, horizontal stripes of lenticels. The satiny sheen reflects light in winter.
Interesting Fact: Captain Collingwood Ingram, the great champion of ornamental cherry trees in Britain, bred this hybrid from two Asian species, Prunus campanulata and Prunus incisa, around 1930. A recipient of the Pennsylvania Horticulture Society Gold Medal Award in 1988.