The Ueno Toshogu Camphor 600 years
Ueno, Taito. Ueno Park's biggest tree predates the shrine built around it by more than two centuries.
Camphor Tree
Crush a camphor leaf and the tree explains itself: the sharp medicinal scent is camphor, distilled for centuries from its wood, and it is one reason the species lives so long, discouraging the insects and fungi that hollow out other trees. This page maps every camphor tree on the site, 15 so far across 7 cities.
In Japan the kusunoki is the great shrine tree, wrapped in sacred rope, its canopy sometimes wider than the buildings it shelters; several of the country's largest and oldest trees are camphors, and city districts have been rerouted around them. The species is evergreen, so a thousand-year camphor in January looks as alive as it does in June. The camphor trees mapped so far are listed oldest first, shrine giants leading.
Tokyo
The Meoto Kusu 106 years
Yoyogi, Shibuya. This is the youngest tree on this list by roughly six centuries, and also the one most people specifically travel here to touch.
Kyoto
The Emperor's Camphor of Imakumano about 866 years
Imakumano, Higashiyama-ku. This tree has a birth year most ancient trees can only guess at: 1160, the year the retired emperor Go-Shirakawa founded Imakumano Shrine as a branch of the Kumano sanctuaries on the Kii Peninsula, reportedly bringing this camphor north from the original site to plant at the new one.
The Camphor of Munakata Shrine 600-800 years (age disputed between sources)
Kyoto Gyoen, Kamigyo-ku. Kyoto Gyoen, the wooded park that surrounds the old Imperial Palace, holds more than 200 trees old and large enough to be called giants by the environment ministry that manages the grounds today.
Seville
The Camphor Tree of the Glorieta de Doña Sol unknown
Parque de María Luisa. As far as one dedicated local record can tell, this camphor tree has no rivals anywhere in Seville.
Naples
The Camphor of the Garden of the Princes approximately 220 years
Capodimonte. This camphor tree arrived from China at the start of the 1800s, part of the Bourbon dynasty's decades-long project of turning their hunting estate at Capodimonte into a botanical showcase to rival any court garden in Europe.
The Camphor of the Royal Orchard 19th century, undated precisely
Capodimonte. A second camphor tree grows in Capodimonte's Royal Orchard, arriving in the same 19th century wave of Chinese imports as its counterpart in the Garden of the Princes but growing considerably wider: 730cm around at chest height, a 20 metre height and a canopy spreading across some 450 square metres, making it the single largest-girth tree in the entire royal estate.
Bologna
The Camphor of San Michele in Bosco undated, mature
San Michele in Bosco. The garden surrounding the Rizzoli hospital splits into two distinct characters, and this camphor grows in the gentler of the two: a western section mixing old oaks, holm oaks, cypresses, lindens and horse chestnuts into something closer to an informal woodland than a designed garden, in contrast to the dense conifer forest of cedars and black pines covering the site's eastern slope.
Hong Kong
The Camphor of She Shan Tsuen estimated 300-500 years, most often cited as about 400
Lam Tsuen, Tai Po. Ten adults linking arms cannot fully encircle this camphor's trunk, and the tree they would be hugging predates every building in the village it half-hides.
The King Camphor of Sha Lo Wan undated; local and official tourism material claims over 1,000 years but no scientific dating exists
Sha Lo Wan, Lantau Island. Japanese soldiers cut down most of Lantau Island's large trees for fuel during the wartime occupation, and by local account, they stopped short of this one because they believed a guardian spirit haunted it and would frighten off anyone who tried.
The Five-Finger Camphor of Lai Chi Wo undocumented; a mature specimen already large enough to be targeted during the WWII occupation
Lai Chi Wo, Sha Tau Kok. Only one of this camphor's original five trunks is missing, and the reason it lost that one and not the rest is the whole story: during the Japanese occupation, soldiers came to cut the tree for fuel, and Lai Chi Wo's villagers physically stood between them and the trunk.
Osaka
The Thousand-Year Camphor of Nankunsha 1,000 years
Sumiyoshi, Sumiyoshi-ku. Once a month, on the shrine calendar's first day of the earthly-branch cycle, pilgrims climb the steps to Nankunsha and buy a small ceramic cat.
The Achihayao Shrine Camphor 1,000 years
Hanaten-higashi, Tsurumi-ku. Lightning found this camphor sometime during the Taisho era, between 1912 and 1926, and burned out most of its main trunk.
The Married Camphor of Nankunsha 800 years
Sumiyoshi, Sumiyoshi-ku. At ground level this camphor splits cleanly into two trunks rising from one root, and that accident of growth turned it into a wedding-day landmark.
The Namba Shrine Camphor 400 years
Bakuromachi, Chuo-ku. In 1811 a theatre manager named Uemura Bunrakuken opened a puppet theatre in Namba Shrine's courtyard, and the venue's nickname eventually gave its name to an entire art form: Bunraku, Japan's classical puppet theatre, is named for the man who staged it here, under this camphor's shade.
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