🌸 Cherry Blossom

Unicode lists 🌸 Cherry Blossom among the flowers in the Animals & Nature group. Typical contexts are blossom, cherry, flower and plant. The keyword list continues with spring and springtime.

🌸 fits messaging apps, social networks and anywhere a short visual cue helps. On SmileyZone it is filed under Animals and Nature. The character has been part of the standard since 2010 (Emoji 0.6). Its code point is U+1F338.

• A single 🌸 is often enough to set the tone.
• 🌸🐝 – Blossom season, days getting warmer.
• Often seen near 🪷 Lotus, 💮 White Flower and 💐 Bouquet.

The cherry blossom, sakura, is Japan’s foremost natural symbol. The bloom lasts barely a week, and that is precisely the point: it embodies mono no aware, an awareness of transience. In season the whole country follows the sakura zensen, the blossom front moving south to north, and celebrates hanami beneath the trees.

The blossom has a darker side too: during the Second World War its brief, beautiful life was used to glorify fallen soldiers. Little of this survives in Western chat, where 🌸 usually just means spring or tenderness.

• 🌸🐝 – Blossom season, days getting warmer.
• 🌸🏵️ – Cherry Blossom and Rosette
• 🌸🪷 – Cherry Blossom with Lotus
• 🌸🌺 – Cherry Blossom plus Hibiscus
• 🌸💮 – Cherry Blossom and White Flower
• 🌸🥀 – Cherry Blossom with Wilted Flower

Easy to mix up with 🪷 Lotus, 💮 White Flower or 💐 Bouquet. They sit in the same Unicode subgroup and look similar at small sizes, so it is worth checking the name before sending.