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Nearly 90-year-old University of Washington cherry trees approach full bloom

The beloved Yoshino cherry trees of the University of Washington are expected to reach full bloom next week. 

SEATTLE — "This year's right on track," UW arborist Sara Shores said. "What influences the blooms is usually the average temperature of the few weeks to maybe two months prior to bloom. … This year, we're right in the middle."

Friday, sun cast itself amply on the canopy of trees. Plum trees, which look similar, began blooming before the cherries. A map shows where the cherry blossom trees are on campus.

Over 250 cherry trees of multiple varieties are plotted around the school.

“When the blooms are fresh, they’re hanging on pretty well, so if we get a little bit of wind, it’s not a big deal,” Shores said. “But as they’re getting to the end of their bloom, if we get wind and rain, that will knock them off faster. It’s pretty fun to come and watch that happen. It’s like it’s snowing petals everywhere.”

The quad is popular during spring. Washington residents come to lounge under budding trees, read, take photos and enjoy warming weather. Visitors are asked not to pull on the blooms or climb the trees’ limbs.

The UW cherry trees were first planted in 1936.

The school's class of 1959 started a scholarship inspired by the beauty of the trees for landscape architecture students.

Joel Miller, one recipient, said he pursued the study because of a passion for “seeing spaces around the world, how people use space and how space affects people.”

Cherry blossom trees came to the United States from Japan. 

On Valentine’s Day in 1912, over 3,000 healthy cherry trees were shipped from Yokohama to Washington, D.C., stopping first in Seattle.

Those trees came after a first round were sent for planting along the Potomac River, that were determined infested with insects and nematodes, and diseased.

They were burned.

After Pearl Harbor in December 1941, four of the D.C. cherry trees were cut down in suspected retaliation for the Japanese attack against the U.S. Pacific Fleet, according to the National Park Service.

The National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C., was established after a small 1912 ceremony witnessed by only a handful of people. Now it's a two-week celebration that welcomes over 1.5 million each year.

In 2014, the University of Washington was gifted 32 new cherry blossom trees from the people of Japan.

Eighteen were to be planted on campus, 14 in the Washington Park Arboretum.

The gift to UW honored the historic gifting of trees from Japan to D.C. in 1912.

A plaque on the UW campus commemorates the Japanese students who have attended the university since 1894, acknowledging Japanese-Americans whose education was interrupted by internment in camps during World War II.

Moving Dorothea Lange photos show families of Japanese ancestry at internment camps -- after Executive Order 9066. Today...

Posted by KIRO 7 News on Sunday, February 19, 2017

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