The Akou of Tagayama Park

Kagoshima is about as far north as this tree can live. Akou, Ficus superba, is a subtropical strangler fig whose range runs up from Taiwan and the Ryukyus and stops around here, which is why four of the city's 38 preserved trees are akou and why almost nobody north of Kyushu has heard of one. It behaves like a fig from further south: it germinates in a crack or on another tree, sends roots down over whatever it started on, and ends up sitting on a fused mat of its own root rather than a trunk. This one is 4.90 metres around, 15.5 metres tall and about 180 years old, preserved tree number 7 from the city's first designation in 1974. It stands in Tagayama Park, on the bluff at the northern end of the harbour, looking straight out across the ferry lane to Sakurajima. Akou drops all of its leaves at once, briefly, usually in spring, and then refoliates within a few weeks, so there is a short window each year when this tree looks dead and is not.