Cherry blossoms have been revered for more than a thousand years in Japan and have become fone of its most recognized icons. In the city of Kameoka, which lies just over the western mountains of Kyoto City (figs. 2,3), mica pseudomorphs after complex cordierite-indialite intergrowths that resemble cherry blossoms are found (fig. 1) (Rakovan 2005). As with the real blossoms, these stones, known as sakura ishi (cherry blossom stones), are also revered by mineralogists and mineral collectors in Japan. The cordierite-indialite precursors to these pseudomorphs are found throughout central Japan, especially in Kyoto Prefecture, where igneous intrusions have baked clay-rich sedimentary rocks (fig. 3). Kyoto has been the cultural center of Japan for a millennium, and it is fortuitous that sakura ishi are from an area so intimately associated with an admiration for cherry blossoms. If the Japanese were inclined to name prefecture minerals, as state minerals are named in the United States, then sakura ishi would be the obvious choice for Kyoto Prefecture.
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