This shrine was once called the shrine of the great tree, and the great tree is gone. A stone in the precinct dates the founding to 727, and the shrine appears in the tenth century Engishiki register under a different name, Michi; two old mirrors bearing that name are still kept here. Ishikawa's own shrine authority records that until the Kan'ei years, some time before 1644, a huge zelkova stood in the grounds and people called the place Taiboku no Miya, the shrine of the big tree. Nobody knows what happened to it. Zelkovas have been growing here ever since, which may be deliberate and may just be what grows on this ground, and the largest of them is the sacred tree, on the left once you are through the entrance torii. It is 5 metres round and 16 metres tall, leaning hard, with hollows where heavy limbs were taken off, and by every visible sign it is in good health and still going. It has no designation and no recorded age. The whole grove is a protected woodland of Kanazawa city. Give it two or three more centuries and the old name might fit again.
The line is our estimate of how much there is to see, not a measurement. Typical for this species where this tree stands; exact weeks shift with the year.
Yasue Sumiyoshi Shrine, Kita-Yasue, Kanazawa 920-0022You can recognise it by the lean and the hollows where heavy limbs were removed, 5 metres round and 16 metres tall. It stands left of the entrance torii at Yasue Sumiyoshi Shrine.
Free, shrine precinct open daily
Hokuriku Railroad Asanogawa line, between Kamimoroe and Nanatsuya, about 5 minutes on foot
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from.
