Zelkova of Shimono Hachiman Shrine (下野八幡大神社のケヤキ)

The crown of this zelkova spreads 26 metres one way and 33 the other, nearly as wide as the tree is tall. The Agency for Cultural Affairs, which has listed it as a national natural monument since June 1951, gives the rest of the measurements: 34.7 metres tall and 8 metres round at chest height. There is a bigger number in the same record, and it needs care. Measured round the roots, the tree comes to 20.80 metres. That is the buttressed mass of the base where it meets the ground, not the trunk, and the gap between 8 and 20.80 tells you how far the foot of this tree spreads before it rises. It stands on the right of the approach to Shimono Hachiman Shrine, about five kilometres north-east of central Takachiho, close against the shrine building. Across the approach is the shrine's great ginkgo, designated on the same day in 1951, so a single visit takes in two national monuments a few steps apart. Nobody has published an age for it. The national record gives none, and a girth alone is not enough to name one honestly. If you know the shrine's own account of when this tree was planted, or how old the shrine considers it, tell us. Go in November. Zelkovas turn russet and orange in late autumn, and so does the ginkgo opposite, in gold, which makes it the month the two trees peak together.