Jonichiji no Icho

Most autumns this ginkgo drops around 180 litres of nuts. It is a female tree, said to be the largest female ginkgo in Japan by girth and the largest ginkgo of any sex in Toyama: roughly 12 metres round and 24 metres tall, standing in the grounds of Jonichiji, a Koyasan Shingon temple twenty minutes on foot from Himi station. It became a National Natural Monument on 20 October 1926, which puts it among the first trees in Japan ever given one. Local tradition holds that the itinerant monk Hodo Shonin planted it in 681, at the temple's founding, as a sacred tree. Taken literally that would make it 1,345 years old; the sources that repeat the legend all round it down to over 1,000 years, and the rounder figure is the honest one. The temple has been nicknamed Ginnan Shoja, the ginkgo hall, for centuries, after the tree rather than the other way round. A folk remedy attached itself as well, and women short of breast milk shaved and brewed the growths hanging from its limbs. It is in good health. A local paper came to see it on 13 November 2025 and found it at the peak of its colour, which is also the week to go.