Photo: duarte (CC BY)
Three of the oldest members of a common tropical street tree species anywhere in Portugal grow together in one Porto garden.
Bishop Wood
Bischofia javanica is planted as an ordinary street and avenue tree across the tropics, which makes the trees mapped here unusual simply for how old they have been allowed to get. This page maps every bishop wood on the site, 3 so far across 2 cities.
Okinawa calls the species akagi and has treated old specimens as sacred for generations: the grove at Shuri Kinjo was designated a national natural monument on 15 May 1972, the exact day Okinawa reverted to Japan, and the prefecture's own note says plainly that most akagi this size around the old castle were lost before that; at Uchima, a single akagi stands over a village well and has been the site of community festivals for as long as anyone remembers. Porto's contribution is quieter but still striking: three of the oldest bischofia documented in Portugal grow together in one botanical garden, kept and classified as trees of public interest rather than replaced. Three mapped so far, across two countries.
Porto
Naha
The village well was underneath it, which is why it became a god tree.
Japan designated this grove a National Natural Monument on 15 May 1972, the day Okinawa was returned to Japan.
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