Hinode is a small town in the wooded hills of western Tokyo, and the tree it is known for is a botanical one-off. Akashide, the red-vein hornbeam, is common across Japan; a weeping form of it has been found growing wild exactly once, on the approach path of Sajigami-jinja here. Every other weeping akashide in the country is a graft taken from this tree. It is six metres tall, fenced, easy to walk straight past, and a national Natural Monument since 1942.
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Foto: Sakaori (talk) (CC BY 3.0)
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The Weeping Akashide of Sajigami Shrine
Red-vein Hornbeam (Carpinus laxiflora, weeping form) · disputed: traditionally said 700 years, town's own 2011 growth-ring study says 180-200 years · Hinode, in the hills of western Tokyo
Every weeping akashide in Japan is a graft taken from this one tree. Akashide, the red-vein hornbeam, grows all over the country; a weeping form of it has turned up in the wild exactly once, here, beside the approach path of Sajigami-jinja in the hills of western Tokyo. The others, a few elsewhere in Hinode, one in Fussa, one in Tochigi that died in 1933, are all descended from this trunk by a difficult grafting technique, because seedlings and cuttings come up ordinary and upright.
Local tradition says it was carried from Yamashiro province when the shrine was founded, seven hundred years ago. The town's own science says no. Between 2008 and 2011 Hinode ran a vigour-recovery survey with tree doctors and observers from the Agency for Cultural Affairs. They counted about 150 rings in a dead limb, compared a girth of 135 centimetres recorded in 1939 with 198 centimetres in 2010, and put the tree at roughly 180 to 200 years. No akashide anywhere is known to live near seven centuries, and the town says plainly that the older figure has no clear basis.
It has been a national Natural Monument since August 1942, and as of 2013 the only one in Japan from the entire birch family. It is also six metres tall and easy to walk past. In 2010 the town felled 33 neighbouring trees to give it its light back.
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