Prunus Cascade Snow™
Common name: 
Cascade Snow Flowering Cherry
Pronunciation: 
PROO-nus
Family: 
Rosaceae
Genus: 
Synonyms: 
Prunus × yedoensis Cascade Snow™
Prunus 'Berry'
Prunus serrulata Cascade Snow™
Type: 
Broadleaf
Native to (or naturalized in) Oregon: 
No
  • Broadleaf deciduous tree, to 25 ft (~7.5 m) tall and 20 ft wide, upright, spreading.  Leaves alternate, simple, oval, broadly ovate to obovate, 5-10 cm long and 4-6 cm wide, doubly serrate, bronzy when young then dark green; fall color from yellow to bronze-orange.  Flowers very pale pink in bud, opening to pure white, single, in short-stemmed clusters, usually 3 per cluster but can be 2 or 4, flowers stems (pedicels) lightly pubescent.
  • Full sun and well-drained soil.  It grows best when given regular summer watering.  Reportedly one of the most disease-resistant flowering cherries available for the Northwest landscape.
  • Hardy to USDA Zone 5
  • The parent plant of this selection is at the Berry Botanic Garden in Portland, Oregon.   There it has long been admired by visitors for its year-round beauty.  The tree was originally imported from Japan, but records were since lost.  It may in fact be an old Japanese cultivar (Elisabeth Carey Miller Botanical Garden).  Jacobson (1996) suggests it might be P. 'Shirayuki'.  Some nurseries are apparently so sure that Cascade Snow™ is some variant of the Somei-yoshino Cherry (i.e., Yoshino Cherry) they label it as Prunus × yedoensis Cascade Snow, others call it a selection of Prunus serrulata.
  • Corvallis: Sunset Meadows Arboretum, along Country Club Drive, tree position # 53.
Click image to enlarge
  • plant habit, flowering

    plant habit, flowering

  • flowering branches

    flowering branches

  • flower clusters

    flower clusters

  • flower buds and flower

    flower buds and flower

  • flower

    flower

  • flower, comparison

    flower, comparison

  • after petal drop, comparison

    after petal drop, comparison

  • plant habit and leaves, after flowering

    plant habit and leaves, after flowering