Jōmon Sugi is located on the north face of
Mount Miyanoura, the highest peak on Yakushima, at an elevation of 1,300 m (4,300 ft).[11] Discovery of the tree in 1968 "sparked moves to protect the forests" of Yakushima and gave rise to the island's tourist industry, which today comprises more than half of its economy.[7]
Jōmon Sugi is accessible via the Kusugawa Hiking Path (east of Miyanoura) and the Arakawa Trail (starting at the Arakawa Dam),[7] but requires a "four-to-five hour mountain hike" from the nearest road to reach.[12] After the designation of Yakushima as a World Heritage Site in 1993, local officials restricted access to the tree to an
observation deck built at a distance of 15 m (49 ft) from the tree.[2]
The tree has a height of 25.3 m (83 ft) and a
trunkcircumference of 16.4 m (54 ft).[13] It has a volume of approximately 300 m3 (11,000 cu ft), making it the largest
conifer in Japan.[1]Tree-ring dating conducted by Japanese scientists on the tree's
branches indicated that Jōmon Sugi is at least 2,000 years old.[1] In Remarkable Trees of the World (2002),
arboristThomas Pakenham describes Jōmon Sugi as "a grim titan of a tree, rising from the spongy ground more like rock than timber, his vast muscular arms extended above the tangle of young cedars and camphor trees".[1]
In 2005, vandals stripped from the tree a piece of
bark measuring about 10 cm (4 in) on each side.[2]
In April 2009, Jōmon Sugi was partnered with
Tāne Mahuta in New Zealand's Waipoua Forest.[14]
^Yamaguchi, H.; Nishio, S. (1995). "Water surrounding Jomon-sugi, a mysterious cedar tree growing in Yakushima Island for 7200 years". Journal of the Japan Society of Civil Engineers (in Japanese). 80: 86–89.
ISSN0021-468X.