The Camphor of Sumiyoshi Hachiman

The address says Shimanouchi and everything else here says Sumiyoshi. The district was called that once, and the name survives in the station, the schools, the post office and the bank, so the shrine is universally the Sumiyoshi Hachiman even though the ward it sits in has been renamed around it. Two big camphors stand in the precinct. The one near the torii is the smaller, 5.8 metres round in the Environment Ministry's database. The other, 8.2 metres, is to the left of the worship hall on a low mound, and it divides into two trunks at about 1.8 metres, which means the girth figure flatters it slightly; the mass below the fork is the impressive part rather than the number. Branches on the hall side have been taken off, so the crown is longer and narrower than it wants to be, and the rest of the heavy limbs are still there, which is more than most camphors this size in a working precinct keep. Nobody has recorded an age for it. The tree looks in good health, which is worth saying about an eight-metre camphor standing between a middle school and a nursery.