Tamba maps two trees on opposite sides of a large merged municipality. Kinone-bashi, a zelkova whose root arches underground across the Okumura River, stands by an 11th-century shrine in Kashiwara, under treatment for root rot since 2002. The Kyushaku-fuji of Byakugo-ji, one wisteria plant trained along 120 metres of trellis, flowers a taxi ride away in Ichijima each May, both reached from stations on the same rail line.
0 / 2 visités à Tamba
Photo : 藤谷良秀(Fujitani Yoshihide) (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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Kinone-bashi (the Kashiwara Great Zelkova)
Saw-leaf Zelkova (Zelkova serrata) · roughly 1,000 years · Kashiwara
A root did what no engineer asked it to do. One of this zelkova's roots grew thick enough to span the Okumura River underground, arching about ten metres beneath a riverbed roughly six metres wide, so that the ground on either bank is connected by living wood rather than a bridge. The name follows the shape: Kinone-bashi, the tree-root bridge.
The tree stands beside the approach to Kashiwara Hachiman Shrine, founded in 1024, in the Hyogo town of Kashiwara. At 6.4 metres round and about 21 metres tall, with a crown spreading some 25 metres in every direction, it is the largest zelkova in Tamba City. Hyogo Prefecture designated it a Natural Monument in March 1970.
It is not currently a healthy tree, and the story should say so rather than look away from it. Armillaria tabescens, a root-rot fungus, entered through damage left by past road and bridge construction nearby, and the city has been treating the infection since 2002, cutting out decayed wood and applying antagonistic fungi to slow it. The tree is roughly 1,000 years old by local estimate, though nobody has cored it.
It stands a short walk from JR Kashiwara Station on the Fukuchiyama Line, free and open, the root bridge visible from the path.
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The Kyushaku-fuji of Byakugo-ji
Japanese Wisteria (Wisteria floribunda), cultivar 'Noda Naga-fuji' · Byakugo-ji temple
The longest flower chain recorded on this wisteria measured 180 centimetres. The name promises more. Kyushaku-fuji reads as nine-shaku wisteria, about 2.7 metres, and the temple's own head priest has gone on record correcting visitors who take it as a measurement: it is the cultivar name, Noda Naga-fuji, a plant bred for unusually long racemes.
One plant, one root, trained along 120 metres of trellis in the grounds of Byakugo-ji, a Tendai temple in the hills of Tamba founded by tradition in 705. That date belongs to the temple and says nothing about the vine. Nothing else does either: no source checked, the temple's own site included, gives a planting date, an age or a trunk measurement. If you know when it went in, tell us.
What is documented is the flowering. Early May brings the Kyushaku-fuji festival, and through late April and early May the trellis is lit after dark, with the grounds staying open until nine instead of five. Entry is 300 yen.
Getting there is the awkward part. The last five kilometres from Ichijima station are a taxi ride of about eight minutes: no bus runs it, the temple operates no shuttle, and the road is not one to walk.
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