NEW DELHI, April 11: After years of efforts, two scientists from Manipur have recorded a new variety of species of the cherry blossom plant in the Northeast and named it after Dinabandhu Sahoo, an Indian professor who first popularised the pink flower in the country.
The plant, named Prunus dinabandhuana (family Rosaceae), grows up to 25-30 meters in dense mixed evergreen forest and blooms in November, unlike the Japanese cherry blossom that blooms in March-April.
The finding of the two scientists – Biseshwori T. and Jenifer M. – was published in the latest issue of the Finland-based Annales Botanici Fennici, a reputed international scientific journal.
They named the plant after their senior as a mark of respect for his outstanding contributions to the world of science. Sahoo is currently the director of the Centre for Himalayan Studies as well as the Cluster Innovation Centre, a senior professor in the University of Delhi’s Department of Botany and a former vice-chancellor of FM University, Odisha.
The cherry blossom or Sakura is the national flower of Japan and a source of inspiration for the Japanese people. India had earlier become the 28th country in the world to have been included on the Sakura map.
The flowering plant is now available in six of the eight north-eastern states – excluding Assam and Tripura – due to Sahoo’s efforts over eight years.
In November 2016, Sahoo organised India’s first Cherry Blossom Festival in Shillong, which attracted hundreds of people and subsequently became a calendar event. He said the cherry blossom festivals help Japan and the US earn millions of dollars from visitors.
He had thought of launching a similar festival after spotting a cherry blossom tree in full bloom in Shillong in 2014. That year, he was appointed as the director of the ISBD, a national institute. Almost immediately, he started exploring the deep forests across the Northeast for the presence of the plant.
Sahoo, the first Indian student to visit Antarctica in 1987, said he found the cherry blossom to be native to the Himalayas.
“In 2015, I planned the Mission Pink Revolution or Mission Cherry Blossom for India. Accordingly, thousands of cherry blossom saplings were planted in Shillong and Manipur in early 2015 in collaboration with the state governments,” he said.
The scientist said the Japanese subsequently showed keen interest and a delegation of GIFFU Cherry Blossom Association of Japan landed in India and jointly organised the country’s first Sakura ceremony in early 2016, making India the 28th country in the world to be part of the Sakura plantations.
“Cherry blossom and related festivals not only help boost tourism in the north-eastern states, but they can also be a source of livelihood for thousands of local people,” Sahoo said.
Due to his sustained efforts, the first Manipur Cherry Blossom Festival was held in 2017 at Mao, a town bordering Nagaland where the council of ministers had turned up.
Sahoo also initiated large-scale cherry tree plantations in different states of the Northeast and started major research projects in the region.
