Ginkgo of Shaolin Temple (Luohan Tree)
Approximate location.
You need a ticket to see this treePaid entry: Shaolin Temple is one of China's most visited religious/tourist sites, ticketed, open daily to the public.
The holes in this ginkgo's trunk are put down locally to monks driving a finger into the wood, the one-finger and two-finger Chan training Shaolin built its name on. That is a story the temple tells rather than one anybody has documented, and it is worth hearing on those terms. The tree stands in front of the Hall of Heavenly Kings, the first hall on Shaolin's main axis, about 25 metres tall with a crown 37 metres across. The source describing it calls it the oldest living tree in Dengfeng at roughly 1,500 years, which would make it about as old as the temple around it. It is a single male tree, which is where the local name comes from, the Luohan Tree: no fruit, none of the smell female ginkgos are known for, just the gold in November. One thing we cannot settle. A separate Chinese account attaches the same finger-strike story, and a King of Ginkgos title, to three ginkgos in the temple's pagoda courtyard, and it is not established whether those are this tree described differently or a genuinely different group further in. We have followed the source that names the tree in front of Tianwang Dian, because that is the one singled out as Dengfeng's oldest, and the pin marks the hall rather than the trunk. If you have stood there and can tell us which is which, we would like to hear it.
From people who stood here
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Getting there
In front of the Hall of Heavenly Kings (Tianwang Dian), Shaolin Temple, Song Mountain, Dengfeng, Zhengzhou, Henan
You can recognise it by the holes in the trunk, and by the crown, 37 metres across on a tree of 25 metres. It stands in front of the Hall of Heavenly Kings, the first hall on the temple's main axis.
Within the Shaolin Temple complex on Song Mountain, near Dengfeng; the temple is a major tourist destination with regular bus and tour access from Dengfeng and Zhengzhou. No specific stop confirmed this pass.
Autumn colour
November, when the crown turns gold over the first hall of the temple
The line is our estimate of how much there is to see, not a measurement. Typical for this species where this tree stands; exact weeks shift with the year.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from. The story was written with AI from these sources, and readers who know the tree correct it.