The cherry is named after a general who ended up on the losing side. Goto Matabei fought for the Toyotomi, and after that clan fell he is said to have settled here in Ouda. The tree stands on the ground where his family's residence used to be. Locals also call it Taki-zakura, the waterfall cherry, which is the better description of what it does. Thirteen metres tall, the trunk over three metres round, and the branches of a weeping cherry falling in a curtain to the ground. In the first half of April it is lit after dark and the village runs a festival around it. The rest of the country met it in 2000, when NHK used it in the opening titles of the taiga drama Aoi: Tokugawa Sandai. That is the year a village tree became a national one. Its age is put at about 300 years. Both sources hedge that carefully, saying it is what people say rather than what anyone has measured, and the hedge stays where they put it. Nara Prefecture lists it as a protected tree. Nothing is gated and there is no entry fee. During the bloom you pay about 500 yen to park, and you will not have it to yourself.
In bloom
the first half of April, when the whole weeping crown comes down in pink and stays lit after dark
Honmura, Ouda, Uda City, Nara PrefectureYou can recognise it as a weeping cherry whose branches fall in a curtain to the ground, trunk over three metres round, on the site of a former samurai residence. It stands in Honmura, Ouda, Uda City.
Free, standing on the former Goto family samurai residence site; open ground with no gate or entry fee (parking only is charged, about 500 yen, during peak bloom).
Kintetsu Osaka Line to Haibara Station, then Nara Kotsu bus toward Oudakoko-mae (Ouda High School front), about 20 minutes, then roughly 20 minutes on foot.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from.
