Miharu Takizakura
Interesting facts
- In 2008–09 seeds from the tree spent about eight and a half months aboard Kibo, the Japanese module of the International Space Station.
- A 'space cherry' grown from those orbiting seeds was planted in Kamaishi, Iwate Prefecture, in April 2018.
- Around 1960 a survey found more than 420 large weeping cherries within ten kilometres of the tree, many believed to be its descendants.
- Between 1974 and 1995 a local grower distributed some 4,700 saplings raised from the tree.
- In the Edo period the lords of the Miharu domain protected it as an official domain tree.
- A poem by Kamo Suetaka in the Tenpō era, praising blossoms whose fame resounded far beyond Mutsu province, helped make the tree famous across Japan.
- Botanically it is an Edo-higan cherry of the red weeping form known as beni-shidare.
- Its root spread measures about 11 metres around, even wider than the 9.5-metre trunk.
- After poor flowering in the mid-1990s, specialists began work in 1996 to restore the old tree's vigour.
- Heavy snow in January 2005 broke more than a dozen of its branches.
Why it is worth it
For a week or so each April, a single tree on a gentle rise outside the town of Miharu turns into a cascade of pale pink. Its name says exactly that: Takizakura means "waterfall cherry", and the image is apt. This is a weeping higan cherry, a variety whose long, slender branches hang almost vertically, so when the blossom opens the whole crown seems to pour towards the ground in thousands of thin streams.
The tree is estimated to be more than a thousand years old. It stands about 12 metres tall, its trunk measures some 9.5 metres around, and the canopy spreads roughly 22 metres from east to west and 18 from north to south. It was designated a national natural monument of Japan in 1922, and it is counted both among the five great cherry trees of the country and among its three giant cherries. What makes it worth looking at closely is the contrast between the massive, gnarled trunk, clearly shaped by many centuries, and the delicate fall of blossom it still produces every spring. Flowering usually comes in mid to late April, and the tree draws several hundred thousand visitors a year.
The Takizakura came through the 2011 earthquake unharmed. Visitor numbers fell sharply after the Fukushima nuclear accident that year, then recovered within a season. The town has also spread the tree's line abroad: saplings grown from it have been sent to the United States, the United Kingdom, Poland, Hungary, Austria, South Korea, Taiwan and Bhutan, so descendants of this one old cherry now flower on several continents.
Outside the blossom week the tree is simply a large, ancient trunk in a quiet rural setting, and it is the spring days, especially early morning before the crowds, that show it at its best.
Getting there
The tree stands about 3 km from the centre of Miharu in Fukushima Prefecture. The nearest airport is Fukushima Airport (FKS), around 21 km away. By rail, Miharu Station is about 12 minutes from Koriyama on the JR Ban-etsu East Line; in the blossom season a temporary bus runs from the station to the tree's car park for roughly ten days, and a taxi from the station takes around ten minutes. When the main car park fills, a temporary lot with a free shuttle opens at the Miharu town sports park. The town charges a small viewing contribution during the season.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
The Miharu Takizakura is an ancient cherry tree in Miharu, Fukushima, in northern Japan. It is a weeping higan cherry and is over 1,000 years old.
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