The Akou of Uchiumi

Only one tree in this precinct is the national monument, and almost everybody gets it wrong. Nojima Shrine sits on the Nichinan coast road with akou figs all through it, roots poured over the walls and the rock, and the effect on arriving is unlike any other shrine grove in Japan, which is exactly why visitors assume the whole stand is protected. It is not. The designation, made in October 1941, covers the single tree standing to the right of the main hall: 6.9 metres round, 15 metres tall, put at 200 to 300 years by the Environment Agency. The explanatory diagram posted in the precinct says so correctly. Akou is a subtropical strangler fig at the northern edge of its range here, and Japan has only five national designations of the species, of which three protect a site rather than a tree; this is one of the two individuals. It is worth saying that the other figs around it are not filler. Standing in that precinct without them would be a much smaller experience, and the designated tree looks the wildest of a wild group rather than a specimen apart from them.