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.