Vancouver's cherry blossom early blooms get us going

It's only mid-February, but with cherry blossoms and other flowers already bloomingacross B.C.'s Lower Mainland, spring is definitely in the air and our floral photography is blooming too.

(In contrast, most of southern Ontario is suffering in bitterly cold Arctic airand much of theMaritimes and Eastern Quebec remain entombed in ice and snow.)

After we ran aphotogalleryof blooming cherry blossoms last week, social media was alive with readers and others who were inspired to tweet and Facebook their own pictures.

Some of them are truly beautiful. But don't take our word for it. Have a look in the photogallery!

Vancouver's cherry tree history

According to the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival, the very first cherry blossom trees were donated to the Vancouver Park Board in the early 1930s by the mayors of Kobe and Yokohama, Japan.

The treeswere planted at the Japanese cenotaph in Stanley Park in honour of Japanese Canadians who served in the First World War.

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In 1958, 300 more cherry trees were donated by Japanese consul MuneoTanabe as an "an eternal memory of good friendship between our two nations."

The ornamental trees were planted along Cambie Boulevard, between 33rd and 49th avenues and in Queen Elizabeth Park.

When the park board did an audit of its street tree inventory in 1990, nearly 36 per cent of the city's 89,000 street trees were of the Prunus genus the flowering plum and cherry tree.