Three of the oldest members of a common tropical street tree species anywhere in Portugal grow together in one Porto garden.
Photo: Paulo V. Araujo, Dias com Arvores
Bishop Wood
Bischofia javanica
Bischofia javanica is planted as an ordinary street and avenue tree across the tropics, which makes an old one unusual simply for how long it has been allowed to stand. We map 4 of them, in 3 cities.
Okinawa calls the species akagi and has treated old specimens as sacred for generations. At Uchima a single akagi of about 400 years stands over the village well, which is why it became a god tree. The grove at Shuri Kinjo was designated a national natural monument on 15 May 1972, the day Okinawa returned to Japan. Porto keeps three of the oldest in Portugal together in its botanical garden. And in Taiwan a farmer planted one in his rice paddy in the 1970s to tie his cattle to; an airline commercial with the actor Takeshi Kaneshiro made it famous, and when a typhoon pushed it over in 2014 it was righted and replanted.
Porto
Okinawa
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.
Chishang
A farmer planted this tree so he had somewhere to tie his cattle.
Photo: Tze Chiang Hao (CC BY 4.0)
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