An enchanting story about an Englishman's attempts to preserve Japan's rich cherry tree heritage in the face of rapid modernization is soon to hit bookshelves across the world.

'Cherry' Ingram: The Englishman Who Saved Japan's Blossoms, by Naoko Abe.400 pagesCHATTO & WINDUS, Nonfiction.

Naoko Abe has charted how the botanist Collingwood Ingram collected cuttings from across Japan in the 1920s and grew them in Britain, even returning one extinct variety back to Japan.