Two trees, and between them almost the whole national count of their kind. Japan protects only two or three shibunashigaya, a rare seedless-skin variety of Japanese nutmeg-yew whose kernels were once sent to feudal lords, and Iga holds two of them a kilometre apart: one unsignposted in the grounds of Takakura Shrine, the other in the northeastern corner of Kagoji Temple. Both National Natural Monuments since the 1930s, both free to visit.
0 / 2 in Iga besucht
1
Takakura Jinja no Shibunashigaya
Japanese Nutmeg-yew, Shibunashi variety (Torreya nucifera var. shibunashi) · Nishi-Takakura, Iga City
The seeds of an ordinary kaya come wrapped in a bitter skin. This tree's do not, which is why it has a name of its own.
Shibunashigaya means kaya without the astringency, a rare variety of Japanese nutmeg-yew whose kernels can be eaten straight off the tree. Edo-period locals called them bee-larva kaya and white-rice kaya, and sent them up to their feudal lords. Only two or three such trees hold national designation anywhere in Japan, and a third was struck from the list after it died. This one has been a National Natural Monument since 25 July 1932.
It runs to about 21 metres. The trunk forks into two main limbs roughly two metres up, and each of those splits again about ten metres higher, into six on the west side, where decay shows, and five on the east. Round the chest it measures 3.05 metres. The same source records a smaller figure at the base, which is physically backwards, so read that one as a slip of transcription rather than a fact about the tree.
There is no sign. Takakura Shrine leaves it unmarked on purpose, because seeds worth presenting to a lord attract people who take them, so allow time to pick it out from the trees around it. Nothing bars the way in.
Nobody has put an age on this one in any source we could find. If you know of a figure, tell us.
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Foto: さかおり (CC BY-SA 4.0)
2
Kagoji no Shibunashigaya
Japanese Nutmeg-yew, Shibunashi variety (Torreya nucifera var. shibunashi) · not documented · Nishiyama, Iga City, about 1km from Takakura Shrine (iga_001)
Japan protects two or three trees of this kind nationally. Two of them stand a kilometre apart in Iga, and this is the second.
Kagoji no Shibunashigaya grows in the northeastern part of Kagoji Temple's grounds. Shibunashi means without astringency: the seed of an ordinary kaya arrives wrapped in a bitter skin and the kernels of this variety do not, which made them worth something in the Edo period. They were pressed for cooking oil and sugar-coated into kaya arare, a confection made in Iga and in Kiso.
It measures 3.7 metres round half a metre above the ground and forks into three main limbs about 90 centimetres up. The crown runs 15 metres east to west and 18 north to south under a height of roughly 20 metres, which makes it a broad tree rather than a tall one. Every year in late summer it fruits heavily, which is the plainest evidence available that a tree of unknown age is in good health.
Nobody has dated it. The national designation and Mie Prefecture's own hundred-tree list both record what it is rather than how old, and no source found closes that gap. If you know of a figure, tell us.
It is free, with parking and restrooms at the temple, about 15 minutes by taxi from Ueno-shi Station.
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