The Camphors of Uryuno Hachiman

Japan designated sixteen trees here at once. The camphors in the precinct of the Hachiman shrine at Uryuno were made a National Natural Monument as a group in June 1951, not one specimen but the whole stand, and three of the sixteen are outstanding. The largest is set at an angle behind the main hall, 9.6 metres round and 25 metres tall, and it is the one fewest people reach, because the gate on that side is usually shut and in high summer the grass comes up. The second stands to the right of the second torii and is worth the visit for its roots alone, a spreading platform of them you look up at from below. The third is on the left at the entrance and throws its heavy limbs out in every direction without much discipline. Nobody has published an age for any of them. The shrine's signboard says the Hachiman deity was invited here in 737, which would make the precinct nearly thirteen centuries old, and the plain reading is that the shrine is older than its trees rather than the reverse. What is unusual, for a national monument, is that you can put your hand on them. Nothing is fenced.