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NAGASAKI Kusunoki project

 

25The Camphor Tree at Nagasaki City Inasa Elementary School

Tree data

  • Variety

    Kusunoki (camphor, Cinnamomum camphora)

  • Height

    Height: No precise measurements as the tree is dead

  • Trunk circumference

    Tree Circumference: No precise measurements as the tree is dead

  • Owner

    Nagasaki City

 

At an altitude of 333m Mount Inasa may not be a particularly tall mountain, but its views across Nagasaki City make it a popular spot for enjoying nighttime vistas of the city. The Inasa district at the foot of the mountain contains Nagasaki's oldest international cemetery, and because from the Edo era to Meiji era it was a port of call of the Russian navy it is an area imbued with a rich international flavor. A trip to Inasa Goshinji International Cemetery enables visitors to see the resting places of Chinese, Dutch, Russian, Portuguese and other people.

Located in a relatively low part of the Inasa district, Nagasaki City Inasa Elementary School will celebrate the 140 th anniversary of its founding in the year 2022 and is a school with a long history. Despite its position 1.9km from the hypocenter, as the school building was made of ferroconcrete it was saved from collapse although the windows were shattered and their frames bent inwards. Nonetheless, 105 of the school's children and teaching staff lost their lives at home or elsewhere in the district.

This camphor tree, which stands in a corner of the school's playing fields endured the damages of the atomic bombing and returned to a state of luxuriating green for a while, growing higher than the gymnasium, but finally died sometime around the winter of 2011. However, it still stands after onsite preservation measures were taken because the tree is used as a peace studies learning material by the children of Inasa Elementary School.

An apparent "second-generation" camphor is growing next to the tree. It is the only second-generation tree of the bombed trees that has grown without any human intervention.

This tree imparts the feeling that there is something to be learned by humans about living and life through trees.

A-Bombed Trees