Trees of Tokyo, Part 1

In case you were wondering why I haven’t been blogging, my Mac crashed a few weeks ago. Fortunately, before the crash, I had uploaded pictures I had taken of trees while I was in Japan. So, to keep me occupied while Macless, I figured I could do a few blog posts sharing my excitement of seeing the Japanese landscape come to life while I was there.

Above, my host family, Beth and Rich, at one of the Tori Gates in Meiji Shrine. The tall trees in Meiji were stunning. One day I hope to see them in fall!

One of the things I loved most about Japan was that many trees had a plaque listing what kind of tree it was. Most of the time, the writing was in kanji and Latin, and sometimes English too. That’s the great thing about the universal use of Latin for plant names — I knew what most things were from having studied Latin tree names for so long. I was excited to see the one above because planch is a common Asian tree that doesn’t grow in the west.

Because I took these pictures in April, the leaves of the planch tree were just emerging.

I loved the way the trees were labeled. Plaques are attached to a springy wire that grows larger as the tree gets thicker, never cutting into the bark.

Above, a fully grown Japanese Zelkova. This is the variety of tree that is planted in the landscape around the Metuchen Borough Hall back home. I started taking pictures of the Metuchen Zelkovas when they were first planted, so it’s really cool to see some fully grown ones, and to think how pretty and shady it will be when our trees reach a mature height.

I simply can’t tell you how cool I thought it was that so many random trees were labeled in Tokyo. Sometimes I’d just be walking along a street and a tree would have a plaque on it. I loved being able to read the plaques to see what kinds of trees were growing in certain places. How considerate of the Japanese people to care for their trees so much. Here’s an interesting article about the restoration of Tokyo’s urban forests after the bombings of WWII, which destroyed a large percentage of street trees.

That root flare is characteristic of the planch tree. I’m such a tree nerd because I was so excited to be seeing a real planch tree for the first time in my life!

I was also really excited to discover that the cherry trees were still blossoming when I was there. I arrived in Tokyo in mid-April, and all the Web sites were saying that the show was over the week before I got there, so I was surprised to find several trees still covered in flowers. Yay!

I posted this one in the blog a while ago but I just wanted to add that it’s one of my favorite Japan pictures because of the juxtaposition of new and beautiful growth against the old statue of a prince in armor.

And this one has to be one of my all-time favorite pictures! At the very first photo session I had with Beth and Rich’s family. I had an awesome picture of these two throwing autumn leaves in the air in joyous celebration of fall in their backyard when they were very little. That was a few years ago now, so to have a similar picture of them in Tokyo, having grown so tall and experiencing a treasured Japanese tradition, well, I just love it!

More tree pictures coming soon! Thank you all so much for being so patient while we wait for my new computer to arrive and for me to get all my files back in order. Ugh!

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