Published ages for Jomon Sugi run from 1,300 years to 7,200, and not one of them is a measurement. The tree is hollow where its oldest wood should be, so no core has ever reached the centre and every figure ever printed is an extrapolation. What can be measured is the body: 16.4 metres around, the largest Japanese cedar known, standing in the World Heritage core zone of an island off southern Kyushu. Reaching it is a nine to ten hour mountain day, and you view it from a deck ten metres off.
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Jomon Sugi
Japanese Cedar (Cryptomeria japonica) · estimated 2,600+ years (official Ministry of Environment figure; disputed, see notes) · Yakushima wilderness / Arakawa trail
Published ages for this cedar run from about 1,300 years to 7,200, and not one of them is a measurement. Yakusugi rot from the inside out, so this trunk is hollow where its oldest wood should be, and no core sample has ever reached the pith. Every figure ever printed about its age is an extrapolation from the outer rings inward. The Ministry of the Environment's official line is over 2,600 years. The 7,200 came out of early coring attempts and is largely discarded now. The honest answer is that nobody knows, and that is the most interesting thing about it.
What can be measured is the body: 16.4 metres around at chest height, 25.3 metres tall, the largest yakusugi known. It was only found in 1966, by a postal worker, and named for the Jomon period on the strength of an age nobody could confirm. It sits in the World Heritage core zone on Yakushima and forms part of a Special Natural Monument.
Two things to know before you go. You cannot get near it. Visitors stand on a wooden deck about ten metres off and see it from three sides, because feet on the root plate were doing real damage.
And this is a full mountain day, not a walk. The round trip from the Arakawa trailhead runs nine to ten hours, most of it along an old logging tramway. March to November the road is shut to cars and the pre-dawn shuttle must be booked ahead.
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