A pair of cherry blossom trees that have brightened the entrance to a Japanese cultural center in San Francisco since the 1990s won’t be in bloom this spring.

       The trees were found vandalized early Tuesday, the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California said on Facebook on Wednesday. Photos show the trees hacked down to their trunks with no branches left.

       “When I saw them I was just stunned: I was shocked, I was mad, I was crushed,” Paul Osaki, the center’s executive director, said in an interview. “It really hurt to see how severely someone damaged those trees.”

       Mr. Osaki said the vandalism was “no easy task,” as some of the branches were over three inches thick and the trees were 12 to 15 feet high. The center, which is in San Francisco’s Japantown neighborhood, planted the trees to commemorate a 1994 visit by Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko of Japan during a two-week tour of the United States.

       “Those trees meant a lot to us,” said Mr. Osaki, who was present for the 1994 visit. “They’re much more than just street trees.”

       Surveillance camera footage from the center shows the vandalism taking place over three days, beginning Jan. 1, while the center was closed, Mr. Osaki said.

       A spokesman for the San Francisco Police Department said the department was “aware of the incident and investigating further” to locate who did it.

       “I don’t know if it was hate-motivated, but it was certainly targeted,” Mr. Osaki said.

       Although the center said it hoped to replace the destroyed trees with mature ones soon, there is no guarantee it will be able to secure the proper city approval or funds to move forward before springtime. (Japanese cherry blossoms usually start to bloom in March or April in the United States.)

       Because the trees have been growing in front of the center for over 20 years, it is likely the entire sidewalk will need to be removed to make way for replacements, Mr. Osaki said.

       Cherry blossoms have a symbolic significance in Japanese culture, in which they are often understood to represent life and death, said James Zarsadiaz, a University of San Francisco professor whose research includes urban and suburban studies as well as Asian-American history.

       “There’s symbolism in the way that it emerges and the way that it grows in general,” Professor Zarsadiaz said. “It’s kind of evocative of life.”

       The blossoming of the trees conjures thoughts of new beginnings and hope — both of which the city’s Japanese community has been clinging to at the start of the new year, Mr. Osaki said.

       San Francisco’s Japantown, also known as Nihonmachi, is an ethnic enclave created in the early 1900s after the Great Earthquake of 1906, when Japanese residents moved to the Western Addition section of the city.

       Over the years the neighborhood has undergone numerous transformations, as Japanese residents were sent to internment camps established during World War II and the so-called urban renewal of the late 1940s displaced residents and local businesses, according to the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.

       San Francisco has a diverse Asian population, with Asian-American residents accounting for over 30 percent of its total population. Its Japantown is one of the few left in the United States, with others in San Jose, Los Angeles and Seattle, Professor Zarsadiaz said.

       Although not native to the United States, Japanese cherry blossoms can be found throughout the country and also have come to symbolize peace in U.S.-Japanese diplomatic relations.

       In 1912, Japan gave the United States some 3,000 cherry blossom trees, which were planted in Washington, and in 1965, the Japanese government gave almost 4,000 cherry blossoms to Lady Bird Johnson, then the first lady. Some, but not all, of the original trees from 1912 remain today as new ones have been planted over the years.