The Ueno Toshogu Camphor

Ueno Park's biggest tree predates the shrine built around it by more than two centuries. This camphor was already an old tree in 1627 when Ueno Toshogu was founded to enshrine Tokugawa Ieyasu, and it has stood on this rise since before Ueno was Ueno at all, which is why the shrine's own literature calls it Ueno's ancestral tree. Its trunk runs more than eight meters around, the widest in the park by a comfortable margin. The shrine itself survived the 1657 Meireki fire, the 1868 Battle of Ueno between shogunate loyalists and the new imperial army, the 1923 earthquake, and the 1945 air raids that destroyed most of Ueno's other historic buildings, largely because an Edo-era engineer built its main hall with unusually deep foundations. The camphor watched all four disasters from a few meters away and came through each one with nothing worse than scorched leaves. Its canopy now shades the approach to the shrine's gold-leafed karamon gate, a combination that has made this corner of the park a minor pilgrimage for anyone who likes their history literally rooted in place.