The Flying Plum of Dazaifu Tenmangu

When the courtier Sugawara no Michizane was exiled from Kyoto in 901, legend says three trees in his garden reacted differently: the cherry withered from grief, the pine tried to follow him and only made it as far as modern Kobe before giving up, and the plum flew the whole distance overnight to take root in front of him at Dazaifu. Michizane had written it a farewell poem asking it to keep sending its scent east even with its master gone, and the plum, so the story goes, closed the distance itself instead. Whatever actually happened, this tree has been called Tobiume, the Flying Plum, ever since, and it blooms earliest of the roughly six thousand plum trees planted across these grounds, usually from late January. Its base splits into three separate stems, evidence of centuries dying back and regrowing from the root rather than one continuous trunk, and it originally stood at a different shrine on the site of Michizane's actual residence before being moved here when Dazaifu Tenmangu was built around him. Michizane became the god of scholarship after his death, and this is the tree students touch for luck before an exam season most of them will not personally remember choosing. Dazaifu sits a short train ride from central Fukuoka, roughly thirty minutes on the direct express from Tenjin.