Photo of the Day
People walking over a bridge in front of blooming pink cherry blossoms.
Kyoto in Bloom
Passersby walk over a bridge framed by cherry blossoms in full bloom in Arashiyama, Kyoto. Known in the country as sakura, the trees were brought to the United States in 1902 by David Fairchild, a food hunter for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. After a visit to Japan, he ordered 125 sakura trees for his own front yard in Chevy Chase, Maryland. The pink blossoms brought so many onlookers that Fairchild ordered 300 more as a gift to the city of Chevy Chase. In 1912, Japan gifted the trees to Washington, DC, where they were planted and have become a yearly attraction.
