A flowering cherry of great beauty, award-winning Prunus ‘Shirofugen’ is a small deciduous tree of vase-shaped habit with a flattened crown and gorgeous blossoms. Pink in buds, large fragrant double flowers, 2 inches across (5 cm), counting up to 25-30 petals, open white with a tinge of pink on the reverse of the outer petals and then change again to deep pink before the shedding of the petals. Blooming in late spring, the blossoms are held gracefully in pendulous long-stalked clusters of 3-7 flowers, closely packed along the branches. Emerging coppery-red, the leaves turn bronze green and warm up to orange in fall. A healthy, vigorous ornamental cherry that has been prized by Western gardeners for over a century and 5 times that in Japan.
‘Shirofugen’ means ‘White Fugen’ in Japanese, in reference to Saint Fugen.

Source: Gardenia