Shuri Kinjo Big Akagi Tree

This guide to the Shuri Kinjo Big Akagi Tree in Okinawa opens with a miscount: six of these giant akagi trees were declared a national natural monument in 1972, yet only five still stand. It follows the Bischofia javanica that once grew thick around Shuri Castle, shading the Ryukyu kings' grounds before war destroyed nearly every stand but this sacred grove, and the local belief in the trees' near-miraculous survival. Villagers still climb the stone path here on the fifteenth day of the sixth lunar month, when tradition says a deity descends into the grove to hear a single wish.