The hot spring came up under this tree, and the tree became the god. Koganeyu sits on the right bank of the Toyohira river on the road up to Jozankei, and its own account says the spring welled out from beneath the katsura. The name given to the tree is not Fudo's katsura but Katsura Fudo, the katsura as Fudo Myoo rather than a tree belonging to him, which is a distinction somebody thought about. There is a torii in front of it and a straw rope round the trunk. It is 11.4 metres round and 20 metres tall, with heavy surface roots, and Hokkaido has listed it as a commemorative protected tree. The 750 years on the board is a tradition and should be read as one. Even the discovery of the spring is disputed: the signboard reads as though the wandering ascetic Jozan found it, as he found Jozankei in 1866, while the hot spring's own website says settlers from Kumamoto came across it around 1883. It is worth noting that the people with the commercial interest tell the duller and more plausible story. The tree stands in the car park by the entrance.
Autumn colour
mid October, when the Koganeyu katsura turns pink and yellow and the fallen leaves smell of burnt sugar
The line is our estimate of how much there is to see, not a measurement. Typical for this species where this tree stands; exact weeks shift with the year.
Koganeyu Onsen, Minami-ku, Sapporo 061-2274You can recognise it by the torii and straw rope around its trunk, with heavy roots breaking the surface. It stands in the car park at the entrance to Koganeyu Onsen.
Free, on the forecourt of the hot spring, visible from the car park
About 25 km southwest of central Sapporo on Route 230 toward Jozankei, bus or car
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from.