The Presidential Junipers of Taipei Confucius Temple

Chiang Kai-shek planted these two junipers himself, on Arbor Day, 12 March 1962. His vice president, Chen Cheng, planted the other one alongside him. They stand on Qingyun Road, the short path between the Pan Pond and the Lingxing Gate, which is the ceremonial approach visitors walk in on and about as public a place to put a tree as the temple offers. They are not old and there is no point pretending otherwise. Sixty-four years, from a recorded date rather than an estimate, which is rarer than it sounds: most trees worth walking to arrive with a range and an argument attached. These arrived with a ceremony and a diary entry. They have been moved once. During work on the Ming Lun Hall in 2011 the pair were lifted and reset roughly a metre from where they had stood, and both survived the move. Accounts also describe inscribed stones beside them recording that the president and the vice president planted these by hand in the fifty-first year of the Republic. That detail is not confirmed from a primary source, so treat the stones as something to look for rather than something promised. The same two men had planted another pair here in 1955. Entry is free, and Bao'an Temple stands next door, which turns this into a two-stop afternoon rather than one.