S P O T ／ SPOT-272

The Great Muku of Mukumoto

椋本の大椋むくもとのおおむく

On the old Ise-betsu highway, in the former post town of Mukumoto in Geino-cho, Tsu City, stands a colossal muku tree (Aphananthe aspera) estimated to be more than 1,500 years old. About 25 meters tall with a root circumference well over ten meters, it is among the largest muku trees in Japan and was designated a National Natural Monument on 22 January 1934. A typhoon in 1871 tore away roughly the northern two-thirds of its trunk — and yet it lives on, the great scarred trunk somehow making its enormous age more vivid rather than less. The tree is said to be the origin of the place name Mukumoto, and it has long been venerated as a sacred tree, girded with a shimenawa rope and protected by a low fence. Here, tree-worship and the history of an old highway post town are concentrated in a single living monument.