The Married Ginkgos of Kushida

On the fifth of October, seven priests climb in with bamboo poles and shake this tree until the nuts come down. Shrine maidens gather them with chopsticks, because ginkgo flesh smells strongly enough that nobody wants it on their hands, and the nuts are dried and kept until March, when they are given out at the Ginan Festival as charms for a harmonious marriage and for children. That is the whole reason these trees carry their name. They stand opposite the main hall, three large ginkgos of over three hundred years treated as a single married pair, and the one at the front is the female that actually fruits. They are a few steps from the far more famous ginkgo on the other side of the same precinct, the one that is older, taller and sung about in the festival song, which most visitors photograph without noticing these at all. The city lists them among its preserved trees. Come on the fifth of October for the only tree ritual in Fukuoka that involves men with poles in a shrine courtyard.