The Camphor of Kagoshima Shrine

Kagoshima's preserved-tree register opens with this camphor. On 20 March 1974 the city designated its first trees under a new ordinance, and number 1 went to the one standing in the middle of the courtyard at Kagoshima Shrine in Somuta. The register gives 7.30 metres around at 1.5 metres, 24.5 metres tall and about 600 years. The Environment Agency measured the same tree at 6.8 metres and 26 metres and put it at 300 years or more, so the older figure is the city's estimate rather than a settled date, and the gap between the two is the honest width of what anyone knows. The shrine carries a second name, Ujise, and a third that only locals use, Uttesa, which is Ujise-sama said in Satsuma dialect. Ujise is thought to describe swirling water, either the eddies at Kanze out in Kinko Bay where the shrine is said to have stood before, or the fast shallows of the Kotsuki River that once ran below this ground. Neither reading is settled. The camphor stands alone at the centre of the grounds, with vines climbing well up the trunk and no sign that it minds. If you know how old it actually is, or anyone has cored it, tell us.