What is the oldest tree in Kanagi?
Kanagi's only mapped tree, and its oldest, is Junihon-yasu, a hiba (Thujopsis dolabrata) whose trunk splits into twelve major branches about four metres up. It stands on a forest hillside near Kanagi, a district of Goshogawara in Aomori Prefecture, estimated at roughly 300 to 800 years old.
Twelve branches fork from one trunk in a shape somebody once likened to a yasu, a barbed fish spear, which is where the tree's name comes from. Local tradition holds the number is fixed: if a thirteenth branch starts to grow, one of the original twelve dies back to keep the count at twelve. A legend explains the planting itself, that a young man named Yashichiro killed a monkey demon terrorising the area and villagers planted this tree in his memory. Around 1912, loggers sent to fell it are said to have refused, and it was left standing instead. In 1990 it was named to Japan's national ranking of its hundred most famous trees, and it carries a Goshogawara city natural monument designation, though a 2003 push for national status stalled when the landowner would not consent. Sources disagree on its age: a council record gives about 800 years, a tourism board a wider 300 to 800. A forest road out of Kanagi leads to a torii gate marking the ground around the trunk, and enthusiasts are documented driving out specifically to see it. Free, about 20 minutes by car from Kanagi Station; the road can close with winter snow.
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