The Spiral Cedar of Fota

Every needle on this conifer grows in a tight curl instead of lying flat, a Victorian nursery mutation known in the trade as Granny's Ringlets long before anyone wrote down which nursery found it first. The whole tree reads from a distance as an ordinary Japanese cedar wearing a bad perm, and up close each curled needle turns out to be a single leaf twisted almost into a full loop. The national heritage tree survey classes it among the estate's arboricultural curiosities rather than its exceptional specimens, which is the register's own way of saying it is here to be strange rather than to be huge, and bands its age to 100 to 150 years, planted around the time Fota's collection was at its Victorian height. Ordinary Cryptomeria japonica is Japan's national tree, planted by the million as timber and temple avenue trees across the country; this cultivar exists purely as a curiosity, propagated by cutting because a seed would not reliably grow the twist back into the next generation. The register is the only source describing this specimen. If you know its planting date, tell us.