The Emperor's Camphor of Imakumano

This tree has a birth year most ancient trees can only guess at: 1160, the year the retired emperor Go-Shirakawa founded Imakumano Shrine as a branch of the Kumano sanctuaries on the Kii Peninsula, reportedly bringing this camphor north from the original site to plant at the new one. Camphor trees are native to warmer coastal Japan, not inland Kyoto, which fits the transplant story better than it would if the species were simply local. Nearly nine centuries later the tree stands 21.9 metres tall with a trunk 6.58 metres around and a canopy spreading 23.5 metres east to west, thick enough that it functions as the shrine's unofficial landmark, visible before the shrine buildings themselves from the surrounding streets. Imakumano Shrine carries another distinction unrelated to the tree. It is traditionally named as a birthplace of Noh theatre, where a young performer called Zeami is said to have caught the attention of the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu at a 14th century performance, the encounter that launched Noh toward becoming a shogunal art form. The camphor was already two centuries old when that performance happened.