On the third day of the A-to-Z Challenge, I wrote a photo essay on cherry blossoms in Taiwan. Hope you like the flowers as much as I did. 🙂
C is for CHERRY BLOSSOMS
The cherry blossoms of Taiwan
Every spring, Taiwan’s cherry blossom varieties bloom from February to April. Flowers range from white to yellow to pink. Some varieties have five petals on each flower, while other varieties have twenty petals or even a hundred! To read up more on cherry blossom varieties, click here.
There are a few favourite cherry blossom viewing locations in Taiwan, including Yangmingshan National Park of Taipei, Wulai and Alishan Mountain. I decided to visit the nearest viewing place, which was Yangmingshan National Park. The park can be reached via public bus Red5 from the Jiantian MRT station. That was the bus I got on.
The Yangmingshan Flower Festival stretches from 26 February to 28 March. Visitors to the park can spend the day exploring its 90 hectares of beautiful Chinese-style gardens, complete with walking trails, fish ponds, fountains, buildings and pavilions.
Yoshino cherry blossoms are common in Yangmingshan National Park and produce slightly pink, almost white, five-petaled blossoms. They are particularly eye-catching because their fresh leaves do not emerge until after the peak of the flowering season.
I loved the cherry blossoms. I did not know that cherry blossoms were common in Taiwan, until I did some research online in preparation for this trip.
Another variety of cherry blossom common in Taiwan is the Formosan cherry, which is also known as the Taiwan mountain-cherry tree. Its bright pink flowers can light up the skyline when blossoming in tandem, and are considered by many to be the most beautiful.
Cherry blossoms with more than five petals are called yaezakura varieties. They are usually the last trees to open their flowers, with blooming periods about two to four weeks after most five-petaled species have flowered.
Project Prose 