Kechimyaku Zakura (The Blood-Lineage Cherry)

Matsumae grows more than 250 cherry cultivars and one of them began here. This is the mother tree of the Matsumae-hayazaki, also known as Naden, thought to be a cross between Takasago and Kasumizakura; every tree of that cultivar traces back to this one. It stands in the grounds of Kozenji, a temple founded in 1575 in what became the northernmost castle town in Japan. The cultivar is believed to have reached Hokkaido through the Kitamae-bune trade, the coastal shipping route that carried goods and plants north along the Sea of Japan. Its age depends on who you read. Japanese Wikipedia gives over 200 years in one place and over 280 in another. Garden and tourism sources say over 300. None of them names a method, so the honest span runs from a little over two hundred years to a little over three hundred. The measurements are not in dispute: eight metres tall, five and a half metres around. Hokkaido designated it a Memorial Tree in 1973. The name comes from a story the temple still tells, about a maiden and a blood lineage, and it is the reason people know this cherry by name rather than as one more tree in a famous blossom town. It is still listed as a bloom-forecast site on the national cherry tracker, which is a plain way of saying it flowered again this spring. Free, on open temple ground, ten minutes on foot from the Matsushiro-shimo bus stop.