The Banghak-dong Ginkgo

When Seoul designated its very first protected tree in 1968, officials wrote down its age as 830 years. In 2013, the National Institute of Forest Science ran an actual scientific survey and came back with a very different number: closer to 550. Whichever figure is right, and this treats both as honest possibilities rather than picking a winner, it remains one of the oldest ginkgos anyone in the city can point to. Locals call it the patriotic tree, because legend says a mysterious fire appeared on its trunk ahead of major national crises, most notably in 1910, the year Japan annexed Korea. Villagers pitched tents around its base in 1991 to stop an apartment development from bulldozing it, and won. The tree also carries yuju, drooping growths shaped like a woman's breast, which folk belief once treated as a sign of fertility and made the tree an object of local prayer. Its neighbor is Korea's most reviled monarch. Yeonsangun, the tyrant king deposed in 1506, is buried on the hillside directly across from it, exiled even in death to the edge of the old capital. The ginkgo has stood watch over that grave for longer than anyone can precisely say, which is, in the end, the most honest thing you can say about it.