Kawatana no Kusu no Mori (The Camphor Forest of Kawatana)

It is called the Camphor Forest of Kawatana and it is a single tree. Eighteen major limbs leave the trunk about five metres up, and the crown covers 58 metres east to west by 53 north to south, close to 180 metres around the edge of its own shade. From any distance it reads as a small wood. Japan designated it a National Natural Monument in 1922 and counts it among the three great camphors of the country. The trunk measures 11.2 metres round, the tree stands 27 metres tall, and every source gives the age as over a thousand years with no method attached and no upper figure, so that is where it is left. In July 2017 it began to die. It shed most of its foliage in one season, and the city, the prefecture and the national Agency for Cultural Affairs graded it severely poor, its roots largely rotted. The suspected cause has never been confirmed: fill dirt laid during work on the neighbouring park, starving the roots of oxygen. Since around 2021 new shoots and green leaves have been returning, tentatively, while restoration work continues. Go expecting a survivor rather than a full canopy. The base is cordoned off, so you look at it from a few metres back. The warlord Ouchi Yoshitaka's horse Hibarige is said to be buried nearby and is enshrined as a deity, remembered every 28 March. Ten minutes by taxi from Kawatana Onsen station, free, no gate and no hours.