The Eimeiji Osmanthus

A typhoon felled the original tree in 1966. What stands today at Eimeiji temple grew back from its stump, and it is still protected as a National Natural Monument, a designation tier normally reserved for giant conifers and camphors, rarely handed to an osmanthus. Before the storm it stood 16 metres tall. Two sources disagree on how far the regrowth has climbed back, one giving 7 metres and the other 5, a gap that likely reflects different survey years rather than a real dispute; both figures are recorded here rather than picked. The 3.3 metre girth and 18 metre crown spread on record describe the original pre-1966 trunk, not the regrowth, so anyone with a tape measure today would find smaller numbers, and that distinction is worth knowing before comparing this tree to any other on this site. Its age is similarly unsettled. Ora's own town page gives 750 years with no stated basis; the national tourism federation instead dates it to 1331, which works out to about 695 years. Both agree on the shape of the answer: several centuries, likely past 700 years. What is not in doubt is that it still flowers. The town's own education board keeps a photographed record of its bloom every autumn, late September into early October, including years with a rare second flowering, the closest thing this tree has to proof of life.