Ito Hirobumi Memorial Camphor

Japan's first Prime Minister planted this one himself, which makes it the youngest tree of any consequence in a precinct where the others are counted in millennia. Ito Hirobumi came to Oyamazumi Shrine on 22 March 1909, by tradition as a descendant of the Kono clan whose tutelary shrine this is. He put a camphor in the ground and he brushed the characters for the shrine's stone name-tablet on the same visit. Seven months later he was shot dead in Harbin. The tree is about a metre round, which in this precinct counts as slender. Oyamazumi's grove was designated a National Natural Monument in 1951 as the oldest primeval camphor stand in Japan, and 38 named ancient camphors sit under that protection. This one is not among them and does not pretend to be. It is here for the date and the hand that planted it, not for its girth, and it is a rare thing anywhere: a tree whose first day is recorded to the morning. That also makes it easy to walk past. No source places it more precisely than the shrine grounds, so the pin here marks the precinct rather than the trunk. Look for the young, straight camphor standing among the giants, a few hundred metres from the Living Gate. If you find it and can place it exactly, tell us.