What is the oldest tree in Takayama?
Takayama's mapped tree is the Great Ginkgo of Hida Kokubunji, put at roughly 1,200 to 1,300 years by sources that differ on the exact figure. The temple's own account says the monk Gyoki planted it in 737, the year Hida Kokubunji was founded by imperial decree; the prefecture's tourism board gives the lower end of the range.
The tree measures roughly ten metres round and stands 27 to 28 metres tall, from two sources that agree; a higher 37-metre figure online traces only to an AI-generated search summary and is not used here. It grows between the main hall and bell-tower gate of Hida Kokubunji, and Hida's own tradition treats its last leaf-fall as a weather sign, expecting snow the next day. A grimmer story is attached: a carpenter building a pagoda here cut his pillars too short, and his daughter Yaegiku's fix, adding bracket blocks, saved it. Afraid she would tell others, he is said to have killed her, buried her at the site and planted this ginkgo over the grave. Its aerial roots, which look like breasts, gave it the name Chichi Icho, and women have come to it for an easy birth and a healthy child, with stone jizo figures of a parent and child at its base. It is a male tree and has never produced a nut, a question the temple fields often enough that the answer sits in its own FAQ. Typhoons and lightning have taken pieces of it over the last century, kept standing on public and donated funds.
See more themed collections of remarkable trees.