From late March to April, cherry blossoms (樱花) bloom in many places around the world. Let's learn some amazing facts about this beautiful flower.

You can find cherry blossoms in many places other than Japan.

Called sakura in Japanese, cherry blossoms are the symbol of Japan. 【小题1】 An activity called hanami (花见), or "flower viewing", is held in Japan every April.

But Japan is not the only country that celebrates cherry blossoms. 【小题2】 Japan gave the US 3,000 cherry trees as a gift in 1912.

In China, you can see beautiful cherry blossoms in places such as Wuxi in Jiangsu and Wuhan in Hubei.

【小题3】

Japan is home to hundreds of types of cherry trees-possibly more than 600. The flowers of many trees change from dark pink to light pink to white. Most blossoms have five petals (花瓣). But some have 10, 20 or more. One type, called kanzan (关山樱), has up to 28 petals on each flower!

They don't bloom for long.

A cherry tree might bloom for one to two weeks. However, they only keep their "peak (最佳的) color" for about three days. 【小题4】

Both the blossoms and leaves are edible (可以吃的).

In Japan, no part of the cherry tree goes to waste. 【小题5】 There are also snacks that use sakura as a key ingredient (原料). Cola, tea, and even sakura-flavored coffee are all popular drinks.

Tomatoes, sweet and juicy, are one of the world’s oldest foods. They were discovered by the Indians of South America thousands of years ago. The first tomatoes were very small. By the time the Europeans brought them to Europe in the 1500s, they were larger. They looked more like the tomatoes we eat today.

The history of tomatoes is interesting. When they first arrived in Italy, they were known as “love apples”. Italians believed that if one ate a tomato, he would easily fall in love with it.

However, in the United States, people believed that one would lose his life after eating a tomato. In 1820, Robert Johnson decided to prove people wrong. He announced that he would eat a tomato in the town square. Everyone was shocked at the news. That morning, about 2,000 people showed up to watch. They were sure that Mr Johnson was going to die. Of course, he didn’t. and from then on, tomatoes became popular in America.

In the beginning, people argued whether tomatoes were fruit or vegetables. From a scientific point of view, they were fruit. A fruit was the ripened ovary of any plant that made seeds. However, this didn’t stop most people from calling them vegetables, They said that tomatoes were eaten with the main meal-just like vegetables. So, they thought tomatoes must surely be vegetables.

Whether tomatoes are vegetables or not, they won’t disappear any time now. They are just delicious, for everyone to eat.