Lulin Sacred Tree (鹿林神木)

Taiwan's second-largest tree stood about 40 metres from a highway for years, and the people driving past saw only the top of it. The Lulin Sacred Tree grows below a cliff at the 102 kilometre marker of the Alishan Highway, so from the road its crown reads as one more treetop in the forest. It was properly found only when somebody abseiled down the drop and reached the trunk. The stairs and the railing came afterwards. What was down there is a Taiwan red cypress that the Forestry Bureau's figures put at 43 metres tall and 20 metres round at chest height, growing at 2,375 metres above sea level. In the official ranking only the Da'an River tree is larger. The same figures give its age as about 2,800 years, and that number deserves a caution. In 2022 National Chiayi University cored red cypresses at nearby Alishan and found many of them far younger than their legends, often because what looked like a single trunk was several stems grown together. Nobody has shown whether that holds here, so read 2,800 as the Bureau's estimate rather than a ring count. The size needs no such caveat. The walk is short: about 200 metres of steep boardwalk and stairs down from the road, roughly fifteen minutes there and back, free and with no permit needed. The steps can be slippery, and a tree this well hidden is worth the care.