El hombre que salvó los cerezos

In Japan each spring the cherry blossom is a feast of the senses, and a symbol of the country's culture. What almost no one knows is that if this heritage of humanity is still alive today it is thanks to an Englishman named Collingwood Ingram, whose history this book reveals to us. Ingram, the son of a wealthy family, became interested in ornithology in adolescence, and his enthusiasm led him to travel to Japan to listen to the song of the birds of those places. Over time he was abandoning the ornithological passion and replaced it with horticulture, and in the Asian country he was fascinated by the multiple varieties of cherry trees, of which it is estimated that there were about 250. When he settled with his family in Kent in 1919, he was delighted to discover that there were two splendid Japanese cherry trees in the garden of the house, which he lovingly cultivated. In 1926 he undertook a new trip to Japan in search of these trees and discovered with alarm that, due to the westernization and modernization of the country and the decision to bet on a single cloned variety, the rich diversity of Japanese cherry trees was being lost, including the spectacular Taihaku or "great white". Ingram dedicated his life to safeguarding those trees and protecting the sakura (Japanese word for cherry blossom) tradition until his centennial death in 1981.