The Crabapple of Kosokuji

Kamakura counts three great crabapples and this is the one people queue for. Kaido, Malus halliana, is a Chinese crabapple grown for about ten days a year: in early April it opens deep pink buds on long thin stalks that hang the flowers downward, so the whole tree looks like it is dripping. The one in the small courtyard at Kosokuji is a Kamakura City Natural Monument and is on Kanagawa's list of a hundred notable trees, and the courtyard is small enough that in season there is not much room to stand. The temple behind it is worth the entrance on its own account. Kosokuji was the house of Yadoya Mitsunori, an official of the shogunate, and in 1271 he was holding his own lord's teacher, the monk Nichiren, in a cave in the garden after Nichiren had told the government that its policies were bringing catastrophe on Japan. The cave is still there behind the hall. Mitsunori later converted and turned the house into this temple. Nobody has published an age for the crabapple.