Miyazakiで最も古い樹木はどれですか。
The oldest tree in Miyazaki is the Great Camphor of Kiyotake, put at about 900 years by the signboard at its foot. The figure comes from the founding of Funabiki Shrine in 1087, on the assumption the tree was planted then, so treat it as an inference rather than a measurement.
Both of Miyazaki's oldest figures are inferences from a date, and it is worth knowing which date. The Great Camphor of Kiyotake stands beside Funabiki Shrine, which its own signboard dates to 1087, and the 900-year age is that founding carried across to the tree. The Sarukawa Ginkgo is given 800 years from a tradition that Shimazu Tadahisa, who died in 1227, planted it himself; the giant-tree database that records the tree notes in plain terms that it looks younger than that. Neither number rests on a ring count or a core. What is measured is size, and there the camphor is not in doubt: 13.2 metres round the trunk and 35 metres tall by the Environment Agency's survey, with a hollow inside big enough that people sheltered in it during the war. Both trees are National Natural Monuments, the camphor since 1951 and the ginkgo since 1935. Getting to Kiyotake: JR Nippo line to Kiyotake, then about 1.6 km on foot northwest to Funabiki Shrine.