The Thickest Black Pine of Nara Park

Black pines were planted through Nara Park for centuries for no reason except that they looked right, and this is the fattest survivor of that long habit: three and a half metres around, twenty-eight metres tall, and roughly two hundred and fifty years old, which puts its planting in the middle of the Edo period. It is also the easiest tree on this page to reach, about five minutes from the station, standing at the corner of the block that holds Kofuku-ji's National Treasure Hall. Look at the ground under it before you look up. Flying squirrels live in the park and strip the cones for their seeds, leaving the gnawed cores scattered beneath the tree in a shape the locals compare to fried prawns, so a handful of little stripped spindles on the path is the sign that something was in the crown overnight. The official guide to the park's giant trees ends its entry on this tree by remarking that the Edo period gardeners who put it here would be pleased with how it turned out, which is a fair summary of the whole park.