The Broad-leaf Ehretia of Dazaifu

This is the largest of its species in Japan, and almost nobody visiting the shrine knows it is there. Ehretia macrophylla belongs to the borage family, the same group as forget-me-nots, and it is not a plant anyone expects at monumental size; this one is fifteen metres tall and six and a half metres around, which earned it a national natural monument designation of its own in June 1935, thirteen years after the camphors nearby. Lightning struck it in 1914 and snapped off the upper trunk, and the remaining stem is hollow to a height of about ten metres, so what stands there is a survivor rather than a specimen. It sits west of the main buildings, on the far side from the crowds heading for the exam charms. Look for a broad-leaved tree with a heavy scarred trunk and a crown that stops abruptly where the lightning ended it, then check the sign, because there is no way to tell a record-breaking ehretia from an ordinary broadleaf without one.