What's more so many people seem surprised to hear that there are cherry blossom in other countries too. Why would there be cherries and not cherry trees and blossoms ?
They must be talking about sakura and not just any old variety of cherry. Obviously they know there are trees that produce the American cherries that they see in the supermarket but they probably don't relate the two. Actually, I don't know how the fruit-bearing tree looks when in bloom. Is it similar to the standard (yoshino) sakura?