The cherry trees of Washington, D.C. attract tourists each spring with their blooms. The cherry trees were a gift from Japan in 1912 as a symbol of friendship and now Near the as famous as the cherry blossom country. When it received the cherry trees, the United States responded under President William Howard Taft by sending flowering dogwoods.
The cherry trees have become a staple of the DC skyline and a symbol of Japan-US relations. However, in the days following the attack on Pearl Harbor, several DC trees were snapped in retaliation. According to the National Park Service, in the 1980s a flood in Japan destroyed many of these cherry trees, but Japanese gardeners were able to restore some of the lost trees by using hundreds of cuttings from trees in Washington, DC.
