Kagoji no Shibunashigaya

Japan protects two or three trees of this kind nationally. Two of them stand a kilometre apart in Iga, and this is the second. Kagoji no Shibunashigaya grows in the northeastern part of Kagoji Temple's grounds. Shibunashi means without astringency. The seed of an ordinary kaya arrives wrapped in a bitter skin and the kernels of this variety do not, which made them worth something in the Edo period. They were pressed for cooking oil and sugar-coated into kaya arare, a confection made in Iga and in Kiso. It measures 3.7 metres round half a metre above the ground and forks into three main limbs about 90 centimetres up. The crown runs 15 metres east to west and 18 north to south under a height of roughly 20 metres, which makes it a broad tree rather than a tall one. Every year in late summer it fruits heavily, which is the plainest evidence available that a tree of unknown age is in good health. Nobody has dated it. The national designation and Mie Prefecture's own hundred-tree list both record what it is rather than how old, and no source found closes that gap. If you know of a figure, tell us. It is free, with parking and restrooms at the temple, about 15 minutes by taxi from Ueno-shi Station.