Two hundred trees, with the early and the late ones deliberately mixed in. Most of the cherries at Matsuyama Castle are Somei-yoshino, but the castle's own account lists tsubakikan among them at the early end and oshima, shiogama and botan varieties at the late one, which is why it says the season here runs comparatively long. The peak falls around the beginning of April.

Two hundred is a small number for a site on the list of a hundred.

What has been done here instead of adding more trees is spreading the ones there are across time, which costs nothing and cannot be seen in a photograph.

The same two hundred can be a single week or the better part of a month, depending entirely on whether they were chosen to open together or in sequence. Somebody at Matsuyama chose sequence, and did it long enough ago that the late trees are now full grown. Hanami takes place on the honmaru, the main bailey at the top of the hill, which means you are up at the level of the keep with Matsuyama spread out below you, rather than in a park at street level looking up at a wall. Getting there is a climb or a ropeway, and either way the blossom is something you arrive at rather than pass.