Ushio no Katsura

The trunk that made this tree is gone. Seven stand in its place, all of them risen from the same base, and that base measures about 13 metres round. Kaishio no Katsura, usually shortened to Ushio, has been a National Natural Monument since 17 April 1937. It grows beside the stone approach steps of Nihara Shrine in the Kaishio district of Daito, in the hills of Shimane, and it is doing what a very old katsura does: the original stem rots out from the middle, the root sends up replacements, and the replacements become trees in their own right. Measuring it is therefore a matter of where you put the tape. The national register records a base circumference of about 13 metres and a height of 30. Another account gives roughly 18 metres round the roots and closer to 40 metres tall. Both are describing a cluster rather than a trunk, which is why the two disagree so widely. Nobody has dated it. A local piece calls it a thousand-year giant, which is a description rather than a dating, so no age is given here. If you know of a real measurement, tell us and it goes on the page. A story told about the place holds that a rock near the shrine, the kagami-iwa or mirror rock, hands the tree back as a reflection. It is free and open, on shrine ground, and you arrive by car: there is no station and no confirmed bus.