Japanese Chinquapin

Castanopsis sieboldii

Sudajii, the Japanese chinquapin, was the dominant tree of the evergreen broadleaf forest that once covered lowland western Japan, before it was cleared for rice, timber and capital cities, so a mature one standing inside a city today is a leftover of the landscape the city replaced. We map 4 of them, in 4 cities.

Kyoto's grows at the Omiya gate of Kyoto Gyoen, on ground that outlasted the forest around it. Kanazawa's pair flank the entrance of the old Ishikawa prefectural office, made a National Natural Monument in 1943, built low and broad rather than tall. Tokyo's, roughly four hundred years old and eight metres round, grows on the former Hosokawa estate where Oishi Kuranosuke is said to have been held after the Ako Incident of 1701.