What's the difference?

It's cherry blossom season in Okinawa, but these are not the usual cherry blossoms of the Japanese springtime. They are early bloomers, at their best in late January and early February. The color is deeper and richer than the somei-yoshinovariety, and something else is different as well.

The Japanese playright Seami once wrote, "The gods have placed the cherry blossoms up high, so that men's eyes--and hearts--may be uplifted." The blossoms he wrote about--the pale pink somei-yoshino--smile up at the sky. The Okinawa hi-kan-sakura smile back at the earth that nurtured them and the people who stop to admire them.