What is the oldest tree in Morioka?
Morioka's only mapped tree, and its oldest, is Ishiwari-zakura, the Rock-Splitting Cherry, an Edo Higan cherry rooted directly inside a crack in a large granite boulder on the grounds of Morioka District Court, judged to be roughly 350 to 420 years old.
The tree stands about 15 to 20 minutes on foot from JR Morioka Station, on the public grounds in front of the district courthouse, free to visit daily (dogs must stay outside). Legend says lightning split the boulder and a cherry seed later caught in the crack; what is measured rather than legend is a trunk about 4.3 metres round where it meets the stone. Japan designated it a National Natural Monument in 1923, among the earliest trees to receive that status. In 1932 a fire reached part of the courthouse and threatened the tree; a gardener, Fujimura Jitaro, wrapped the trunk in his own wet coat rather than let it burn, and it bloomed again the following spring. It flowers for roughly ten days each April, and the court adds bus parking for the crowds who come to see it. The tree is judged to be somewhere between 350 and 420 years old, a range rather than a fixed figure, because no source has settled on a single number.
See more themed collections of remarkable trees.