Kinone-bashi (the Kashiwara Great Zelkova)

A root did what no engineer asked it to do. One of this zelkova's roots grew thick enough to span the Okumura River underground, arching about ten metres beneath a riverbed roughly six metres wide, so that the ground on either bank is connected by living wood rather than a bridge. The name follows the shape: Kinone-bashi, the tree-root bridge. The tree stands beside the approach to Kashiwara Hachiman Shrine, founded in 1024, in the Hyogo town of Kashiwara. At 6.4 metres round and about 21 metres tall, with a crown spreading some 25 metres in every direction, it is the largest zelkova in Tamba City. Hyogo Prefecture designated it a Natural Monument in March 1970. It is not currently a healthy tree, and the story should say so rather than look away from it. Armillaria tabescens, a root-rot fungus, entered through damage left by past road and bridge construction nearby, and the city has been treating the infection since 2002, cutting out decayed wood and applying antagonistic fungi to slow it. The tree is roughly 1,000 years old by local estimate, though nobody has cored it. It stands a short walk from JR Kashiwara Station on the Fukuchiyama Line, free and open, the root bridge visible from the path.