The Horse Chestnut of Fukujo-ji

The national survey that measured this tree in 1988 also wrote down that part of it was already dying. Partial dieback, the register says, on a trunk four metres round. That was thirty-eight years ago and nothing published since reports how it is doing, so treat it as the least certain tree on this mountain: it is in the register, the Japanese record of Fukujo-ji names a Japanese horse chestnut among the temple's designated giants, and nobody has published anything to say it came down. Tochinoki, as the species is called here, is a tree of wet mountain ground and cool air, which is what 509 metres above the Saijo basin provides. Its nuts were famine food before they were a delicacy, leached of their bitterness over days and pounded into tochi-mochi, still sold across the mountains of western Japan. Nobody has dated this one. If you climb the temple road and find it, or find it gone, tell us, because that is the fastest way this page gets better. It stands with two other registered giants on the same ground, a pair of cedars and a kurogane holly, which makes the stop worth the drive whatever condition you find this trunk in.