Hokuto's one mapped tree is Jindai-zakura, the oldest of Japan's Three Great Cherry Trees and, by tradition, the oldest cherry in the country: somewhere between 1,800 and 2,000 years old. It grows at Jisso-ji Temple in the hills of Yamanashi and was among the first five individual trees Japan ever named a National Natural Monument, in 1922. It flowers pale and drooping in early April, and bloom forecasters track it every year like a piece of infrastructure.
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Jindai-zakura (Yamataka Jindai Zakura)
Higan Cherry (Prunus subhirtella var. ascendens) · traditionally estimated 1,800-2,000 years · Yamataka, Hokuto
In October 1922 Japan named its first National Natural Monuments. Five single trees were on that list, and this cherry was one of them. It is also counted among the Three Great Cherry Trees of Japan, with Miharu Takizakura in Fukushima and Usuzumi-zakura in Gifu, both designated on the very same day.
The age usually given is 1,800 to 2,000 years, tied to a legend that the warrior prince Yamato Takeru planted it. Treat that as a tradition rather than a finding. The prefecture's tourism board, the city of Hokuto and a government cultural publication all repeat the figure and none cites a dating method, and the trunk is too hollow and knotted to read reliably. What can be measured is the base: a root flare given as 11.8 metres round by the prefecture and 13.5 by other listings, under a tree only about 10 metres tall. It grows outward rather than up.
It is an Edo-higan, the long-lived species behind many of Japan's oldest cherries, and the blossom is pale and drooping in early April. Bloom forecasters still track this individual tree season by season, which is how we know it is alive and watched. Seeds from it have reportedly been flown into space and grown on around the world.
Jisso-ji charges around 500 yen during blossom season. Without a car it is a taxi from Hinoharu or Kobuchizawa.
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