In 1926 Captain Collingwood Ingram (“Cherry” Ingram) was invited to Japan to give a lecture to the Sakurakai (cherry society).  Whilst there he was shown a picture in an 18th Century book of a large, white cherry blossom that had become extinct.  He recognised the same blossom on a cherry tree which had been imported to a Sussex garden in 1899 and was able to take cuttings from it and reintroduce the lost Taihaku to Japan in 1932.

All of the Taihaku in cultivation today are off-spring of that cherry tree in Sussex.