...which is usually overlooked or ignored has to do with their use as a nationalistic symbol; incidentally this is where the practice of them being planted at schoolyards and which started during the Meiji period, when the Japanese nationalism that would lead to the things it led in WWII started being built. The oldest reference I've seen of the blossoming cherry tree as a symbol of the "Yamato spirit" (Yamato Damashii/大和魂), that is the particular character of the Japanese is in a poem by the scholar Motoori Norinaga (本居 宣長/1730-1801) who was used as the basis for the later Japanese nationalism but the broader use came later, when the blossoms' short life was associated with sacrifice for the Emperor and the Empire and remains until today: almost all far-right groups are using the cherry blossom as their symbol while some of the most famous cherry trees are in the very controversial shrine called Yasukuni Jinja (靖国神社) where together with the other dead from Japan's wars, there have been also enshrined 14 (if I'm not mistaken) war criminals who were executed during the Occupation. Here one of Yasukuni's cherry trees together with the shrine's gate and its crest, the 16-petal chrysanthemum which is also the Imperial Seal of Japan.
(For a bigger version of this picture both in color and black and white, check my "Japan Arekore" set on Flickr).
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