The Hwayang-dong Zelkova

A queen once caught her breath under this tree while fleeing a mutiny. In 1882, soldiers enraged over unpaid wages and foreign favoritism stormed the palace in what became known as the Imo Incident, and Queen Min, who would later be assassinated by Japanese agents in 1895, escaped the capital in disguise. Her route south took her past Hwayangjeong, a royal pavilion built here during King Sejong's reign in the early 15th century, where she is recorded to have rested. The pavilion is long gone, but the zelkova that stood beside it has not moved in roughly seven centuries. It has grown into a proper giant, twenty eight metres tall with a trunk seven and a half metres around, splitting into four massive limbs a couple of metres above the ground. Age and weight have not been kind to it: sections of the trunk have been treated for rot, and metal supports now brace the upper branches so they do not tear away from their own bulk. Six younger zelkovas have grown up around the original tree over the centuries, forming an informal grove, but this is the one the Cultural Heritage Administration singled out, the one that was already ancient when a fleeing queen needed somewhere to stop.