This tree has been clipped into a box. Its name says so: kaku-maki means squared maki, and the maki in question is an inumaki, a Buddhist pine, pruned by generation after generation of gardeners until the crown became a cube. Local tradition puts it at about 350 years old, and the published range runs from 300 to 350. That figure is tradition, not a measurement, and we have found no survey behind it. What is certain is the work. A shape like this does not happen once, it lasts only as long as somebody keeps cutting it, and here somebody has, for generations. It grows in Ogi Park in Saga Prefecture, one of Japan's 100 notable historic parks. The tree itself carries no natural monument designation. Current visitor information for the park, gathered up to January 2026, still names the 350-year-old kakumaki among the things to see, and a photograph from December 2017 shows it in place. The park is public, open all year, and no source mentions a ticket. Our pin comes from where a photographer stood, so it is close rather than exact; inside the park, the square crown is the giveaway. Nobody has published a recent girth or height. If you measure it, tell us.
From people who stood here
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Getting there
Ogi Park, Ogi, Saga Prefecture
You can recognise it by the crown, clipped into a square block, which is what kaku-maki means. It stands inside Ogi Park; the pin is close rather than exact, so look for the cube.
Public park (Ogi Park, a Japanese Top 100 historic park); the tree stands inside the park. Park is open all year; no ticket seen in sources.
Ogi, Saga Prefecture; no public-transport time verified in this pass.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from. The story was written with AI from these sources, and readers who know the tree correct it.