Tate-no-Omayumi

Mayumi, the Japanese spindle, normally grows to the size of a shrub. This one is 7.3 metres tall with a trunk 3.55 metres round. It is protected twice over. Koriyama made it a city natural monument, on 20 November 1979 according to the city's list of designations, and Fukushima Prefecture counts it among its Green Cultural Properties. The prefecture's giant-tree survey of 2016 and 2017 measured it at those figures and put its age at 340 years. The local tourism association gives slightly different numbers: about 6 metres tall, a trunk about a metre across, and more than 300 years old. Either way the two agree on the point. This is a plant that usually stays modest, and here it has had three centuries to ignore that. It stands beside a shrine where the road bends at Tate, in the Konan district, well outside central Koriyama. Look at it from the road; we know of no dedicated parking. Expect to come by car or bus. One caution about the map. Two sources put the tree about 155 metres apart, and neither has been checked on the ground, so our pin is approximate. Look for the shrine on the curve. If you stand beside it, a GPS fix from your phone would settle the map for everyone who comes after you. If you know its story, tell us.