The Kinmokusei of Kezoji
Approximate location. Show us where it is
How do I find it? You can recognise it as the young tree behind the low protective fence, south of the kitchen building. The famous original died; this one grew off its root and is about 35 to 40 years old.
The tree that made this place famous is dead, and the one standing here now is its child. The original kinmokusei at Kezoji was 300 to 400 years old when the state made it a National Natural Monument on 15 June 1937, a trunk 2.6 to 2.8 metres round with a scent people said carried for kilometres the week it opened. Typhoons took it apart. The sources disagree on which storms did it, giving 1957, 1966 and 1982 between them, and by the late 1980s the trunk was dead. What replaced it came off the same root. Gunma Prefecture's forestry experimental station raised saplings, and around 1987 to 1988 a second-generation tree was established on the spot. The Japanese record describes shoots pushing from the surviving root base alongside propagated cuttings; the prefecture's own tourism board simply calls it a 1988 replanting. Either way the sweet osmanthus in front of you is roughly 35 to 40 years old, growing behind a low protective fence on temple ground beside Kezoji Park. It flowers in the middle of October, later in the month than it used to, and holds the flower for three or four days. Osmanthus announces itself before you see it, which is the whole reason anyone wrote this tree down in the first place. Six designated kinmokusei survive in Japan. This is one of those sites, still carrying the name of a tree that is no longer there.
- Species
- Sweet Osmanthus (Osmanthus fragrans)
- Location
- 6 Kezoji-cho, Isesaki, Gunma, Japan (Kezoji temple grounds, south of the kitchen building, adjoining Kezoji Park) (Isesaki, about 17.1 km from central Maebashi, a same-day trip)
- Access
- Free. Temple grounds adjoining the public Kezoji Park; the tree stands behind a protective fence but is visible and reachable without booking or permission. Accessible by bus from Isesaki Station or about 5 minutes by car from the nearby expressway interchange.
- Getting there
- Bus from JR Isesaki Station toward Kezoji; roughly 5 minutes by car from the nearest expressway interchange. No station-to-door walk time found.
The button above opens directions in your maps app.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from.
Trees nearby
Discover more
Ticking this one off, walks past several more, and your collection growing city by city: that is the Ancient Trees app.
Get the appThis page was researched from a distance. If you know this tree, you know things we do not: the species, the age, the size, whether the photo shows the right tree, or that it is gone. Every field on this page can be corrected.
Correct a detail on this pageSuggest another tree