Pinkish White Plum Blossoms 淡いピンクの梅

Japanese follows English. 英語の後に日本語が続きます。

This plum tree should produce pink blossoms, so I've been looking forward to them since last month as I did last year, but so far I've seen only white blossoms. 

Scientifically, white flowering plum trees produce white blossoms while pink flowering plum trees, like this one, produce pink and white blossoms depending on whether they have sufficient anthocyanins to make the flowers red (or pink). Apparently, the tree doesn't have enough anthocyanins.

Because of the mechanism, pink flowering plum trees sometimes produce half and half colored blossoms. (Read this post!). 

Pinkish white plum blossoms　淡いピンクの梅

Chinese Quince (Chaenomeles Speciosa) 木瓜（ボケ）

Japanese follows English. 英語の後に日本語が続きます。

Chinese quince (Chaenomeles speciosa) has started to bloom in my neighborhood. The red is so bright that I mistook them for Christmas berries at first. Chinese quince flowers are pretty and the fruits can be used to make jam, but sadly in Japan, plum is more popular as a flower and an ingredient of jam.  

Chinese quince　木瓜