The Zenpukuji Ginkgo

The upside-down tree Tokyo never quite got over. In 1229 the Buddhist monk Shinran planted his walking staff in the ground here before leaving Zenpukuji, or so the story goes, and the staff took root and grew into this ginkgo. Whatever the truth of the legend, tree-ring estimates put the trunk at roughly 750 years old, which makes it the oldest living thing in Tokyo and a rare tree that has outlasted the city around it more than once. Its aerial roots hang from the lower branches like stalactites, thick and pendulous enough that locals nicknamed it Sakasa Icho, the Upside-Down Ginkgo. The tree was declared a National Natural Monument in 1926, one of the first in Tokyo. Then came March 1945: American incendiary bombs burned most of the temple to the ground and scorched the ginkgo's trunk black. Ginkgos are famously fire-resistant, sappy and slow to catch, and this one kept living. New growth eventually covered the char. Every autumn it turns a shade of gold that draws photographers who have never heard of Shinran.