A E Housman's cherry was no doubt the wild white variety (or gean to the Scots).

But cherry trees of various sorts are still dominating public and private gardens; those with flamboyant displays of pink flowers are particularly eye-catching.

LOVELIEST OF TREES, THE CHERRRY NOW

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride

Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,

Twenty will not come again,

And take from seventy springs a score,

It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom

Fifty springs are little room,

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.