Spring once again blushes the face of Japan, nowhere more so than in Yoshino, the nation's most famous sakura (cherry blossom) viewing destination and UNESCO World Heritage site. Each year, the sleepy mountain village in Nara Prefecture comes to life at the end of March in anticipation of the monthlong hanami (cherry blossom viewing) season that attracts many hoping to see Yoshino's 30,000 sakura in bloom at least once in their lives. There are two main reasons for the popularity of Mount Yoshino's sakura: one spiritual, one practical.
The trees are considered sacred because En no Gyoja, a 7th-century sorcerer and founder of the Buddhist-Shinto fusion sect called shugendo, had a vision and carved what he saw into the bark of one of Yoshino's cherry trees.
Yoshino was already renowned for its shiro yamazakura (white mountain cherry trees) when shugendo practitioners began planting more around the area, resulting in the mountain of white flowers that arrives each spring at present. Japan's most popular varieties of sakura are cultivated ones, such as Somei Yoshino with their five perfect and slightly pink petals, or the yaezakura varieties, bursting with up to 50 large petals in colors ranging from deep pink to pure white. That said, the five small petals on shiro yamazakura have a wilder look more suitable for Yoshino's mountain setting. The practical side of Yoshino is that, unlike the scant week of flowers in many cities, the sakura here are in bloom for a month and in full bloom for more than two weeks.