What is the oldest tree in Higashine?
Higashine's mapped tree is the Great Zelkova of Higashine, one of Japan's three great zelkovas and the only one graded a Special Natural Monument, a tier above the other two. Its age is disputed between experts: one assessment puts it over 1,000 years, a later one over 1,500, and neither has given way.
The tree measures 16 metres round at chest height and 24 metres at the roots, forking into two stems about 5.5 metres up, and a 1980 ranking of Japan's zelkovas gave it the country's top rank, East Yokozuna, the sumo term for the highest grade. It grows in the playground of Higashine Elementary School, on the site of Odajima Castle's main keep, built in 1347; the tree was already substantial when the walls went up. It once had a partner, called the mother and father trees, and the father died in 1885. A storm took a major north-facing bough in 1902, why the crown is thin on that side, and the recorded height has fallen from 35 metres at the 1957 designation to about 28 today. The base is hollow, large enough for two tatami mats, and people once crawled through it hoping for a child; it is fenced off now for the tree's protection, though the grounds remain genuinely open, listed on the city's own tourism pages and visited on weekends when school is out. Local children, called keyaki-kko, are taught that catching three falling leaves before they land earns a wish.
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