How do I find it? You can recognise it by adventitious roots grown to nurse it back from decline, and a crown once again heavy with blossom each April. It stands on a forest trail off the Oya River, Yabu.
By 1993 this cherry was barely flowering. Now around 10,000 people come each April to watch it bloom. The decline set in from 1967 and ran for three decades, until treatment began in 1997: the soil around the roots was improved and the tree was encouraged to throw out adventitious roots. By the city's 2020 survey it had recovered substantially. That survey measured it at 13.8 metres tall, 6.3 metres round at chest height and 7 metres at the root, which puts it among the ten oldest and thickest cherry trees recorded in Japan. It is an Edo Higan, the long-lived species behind most of the country's ancient cherries, and a National Natural Monument since June 1951. Before the designation it was a lord's privilege: the feudal rulers of the Izushi Domain came here for their cherry-viewing, and in 1823 the domain's Confucian scholar Sakurai Sekimon named it Sensakura, the hermit's cherry. It now stands on the Silver Wagon Road, a Japan Heritage trail across Harima. Its age is tradition rather than record. The sources say only that it is said to exceed a thousand years, and nobody has counted the rings. Getting there takes a car and then a quarter of an hour on a forest trail. In blossom week the approach road runs one way and someone sets up a temporary toilet, which tells you how many people the walk is worth to.
- Species
- Edo Higan Cherry (Prunus itosakura, syn. Prunus subhirtella var. ascendens)
- Girth
- 6.3 m
- Location
- Oya-cho Tarumi, Yabu City, Hyogo, Japan (a forest trail off the prefectural road along the Oya River, from Oya Junior High School) (Oya-cho, Yabu City, roughly 20 km (mountain road, no public transport route found) from Asago, which we already publish; treated as its own single-tree place rather than joined to Asago)
- Access
- Free, on city-managed land. Reached by a roughly 15-minute walk on a forest trail from a small parking area (about 20 spaces); one-way traffic control and a temporary restroom are put in place for the blossom peak in early-to-mid April, when the site draws around 10,000 visitors. No public transport route found; a car is effectively required.
- Getting there
- No train or bus stop found serving the site; nearest access is by car via the prefectural road along the Oya River from Oya Junior High School, then a 15-minute walk.
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