Fujikawa Tenjin and Its Reclining Dragon Plums
The plum trees at Fujikawa Tenjin do not stand the way plum trees usually do. Their trunks bend low and travel along the ground, and where a heavy branch settles into the soil it sends down roots and rises again as a separate tree. Over generations the grove has spread this way, one creeping limb at a time, until the whole planting reads less like a row of trees than a single organism working slowly across the hillside.
This habit gave the trees their name. Garyubai, written with the characters for "reclining," "dragon," and "plum," describes a trunk that lies along the earth the way a dragon is imagined to rest. Around 55 of these stocks at the Fujikawa Tenjin shrine in Satsumasendai, Kagoshima Prefecture, were designated a National Natural Monument on 3 October 1941, recognized as a rare grove of aged, ground-hugging plum.
The shrine sits in Togo, an inland district of farm valleys in the northwest of Kagoshima. It is dedicated to Sugawara no Michizane, the Heian-period scholar and statesman revered across Japan as the deity of learning, and the plum grove is bound up with his story.
A Scholar's Exile, and a Grove Said to Begin with One Tree
Michizane (845–903) rose to high office in the Heian court before political rivals engineered his removal. In 901 he was demoted to a nominal post at Dazaifu in northern Kyushu, where he died two years later. That much is national history. What follows at Fujikawa is local tradition.
According to the account preserved here, Michizane did not die at Dazaifu at all. Fearing further reprisals, he is said to have feigned his death, slipped away by boat along the Kyushu coast, come ashore near Izumi, and made his way inland to this valley, then known as Fujikawa Kitano, where he lived out his final years in quiet retirement. By this telling the shrine was raised soon after his death on the very spot.
The plum garden carries its own thread of the story. Local tradition holds that Michizane, who loved plum blossom above all other flowers, planted a single tree here with his own hand, and that every tree in the present grove descends from that one planting. Read as history or as devotion, the legend has shaped how the place is treated: the grove is regarded not as an ornamental planting but as a living relic.
The shrine building has a harder, documented past. It burned in 1587 during Toyotomi Hideyoshi's campaign to bring Kyushu under his control, and the records kept there were lost in the fire, which is why its founding date can no longer be fixed. The Shimazu lords of Satsuma rebuilt it. Shimazu Mitsuhisa restored the shrine in 1647, and a major renovation followed in the Bunka era, around 1815. The worship hall visitors see today was rebuilt in February 1998.
Why the Grove Is Protected
Japan's natural monument system protects living things of scientific or cultural importance. The criterion under which Fujikawa Tenjin's plums qualify covers famous, giant, and aged trees, the parent stock of cultivated plants, and notable groves. The Fujikawa grove was listed in 1941 on the strength of being something genuinely uncommon: not a single remarkable tree but a whole stand of old plum growing in the reclining habit.
The original designation record, written in the formal language of the period, describes the grove as having grown from one tree, with branches that reached the ground taking root to form new stocks. At the time of listing it counted more than seventy such stocks. The figure usually cited today is closer to 55, the natural rise and fall to be expected of a living monument across more than eight decades.
That same record measured the largest stock. Its spreading growth covered roughly 200 square metres on its own; the circumference at the root was 1.8 metres, and the trunk measured 1.73 metres around at a height of 0.9 metres above the ground. The flowers were noted as pale pink, double-petalled, and strongly scented.
Those details still describe the grove well, and they explain its standing. Aged plum is not rare. Double-flowered plum is not rare. A whole grove of giant plum grown into the garyubai form is.
What to Look For on a Visit
The grove is at its best from mid-February to early March, when the pale pink blossom opens and the scent settles over the precinct. Plum fragrance is cleaner and lighter than the heavier perfume of later spring flowers, and on a still afternoon it carries a surprising distance.
Slow down once you are inside the grove. Because the trunks lie low, the canopy is low too, and you can stand beneath branches barely overhead, almost enclosed by blossom. Follow a single trunk with your eye and you can often trace where it dips to the ground, roots, and lifts away again as the next tree in the line. The garden holds roughly 300 plum trees in all across about 40 ares; the designated stocks are the oldest and most dramatically reclined among them.
Fujikawa Tenjin is also a working shrine with a steady devotional life. Because Michizane is the deity of learning, students arrive before examinations to pray for success, and the precinct is busy at New Year. During the plum season the shrine holds a spring festival, traditionally around 25 February, with food stalls and stage performances among the trees. A goshuin, the inked shrine seal, is available at the shrine office, stamped here with a plum motif and an image of a dog named Tsun, whose story belongs to the next part of any visit.
Around Fujikawa Tenjin
Inside the precinct, near the approach path, stands a bronze statue of a Satsuma dog. Tsun was raised in this very district of Fujikawa and given by a local man, Maeda Zenbei, to Saigo Takamori, the Satsuma leader and a central figure of the Meiji Restoration, who kept the dog for rabbit hunting. By local account, Tsun was the model for the dog at the side of the celebrated statue of Saigo in Ueno Park in Tokyo. The Fujikawa statue, nearly life-size at 60 centimetres tall, was made by the sculptor Nakamura Shinya and unveiled in February 1990.
The wider district rewards an unhurried day. A short drive away is Sendai Takaki Onsen, an old and unpolished hot-spring hamlet where wooden inns and shops line a single narrow street. Its alkaline sulphur water has drawn bathers for generations, and a soak at the communal bathhouse costs only a couple of hundred yen. Togo also has a riverside park with a camping ground, and in summer the area is known for nagashi-somen, chilled noodles caught from a flowing channel of water.
There is no public transport to the shrine, so a car is needed. Parking is available on site.
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Q&A
- When is the best time to see the plum blossom?
- The grove usually flowers from mid-February to early March, with the peak shifting year to year according to weather. Local bloom reports are published during the season, and checking one before travelling is sensible, since the trees can still be in bud in mid-February.
- What exactly makes these plums "reclining dragon" plums?
- As the trees age, their branches lean outward and downward until they touch the ground, where they root and grow into new stocks. The result is a trunk that runs horizontally along the earth rather than rising vertically, a shape likened to a resting dragon. The word garyubai is written with the characters for "reclining dragon plum."
- How do I get to Fujikawa Tenjin?
- The shrine is in the Togo district of Satsumasendai and is reached by car. It is about 30 minutes from JR Sendai Station, about 25 minutes from the Noda interchange of the Minami-Kyushu Expressway, and roughly an hour and twenty minutes from Kagoshima Airport. No bus service reaches the shrine.
- Is there an admission charge?
- No. The shrine and its plum grove are open to visitors without a fee. A goshuin seal is available at the shrine office for a small offering, generally between about 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.
- Why is there a statue of a dog at a shrine to a scholar?
- The dog, Tsun, has no connection to Michizane. Tsun was a Satsuma hunting dog from this district, given to Saigo Takamori, and is remembered locally as the model for the dog in the famous Saigo statue in Tokyo. The statue at Fujikawa Tenjin honours that local connection.
Basic Information
| Name | Fujikawa Tenjin no Garyubai (Reclining Dragon Plum of Fujikawa Tenjin) |
|---|---|
| Location | Fujikawa, Togo-cho, Satsumasendai City, Kagoshima Prefecture |
| Designation | National Natural Monument |
| Date of designation | 3 October 1941 |
| Designation criterion | Famous, giant, and aged trees; parent stock of cultivated plants; notable groves |
| Scale | Approx. 55 designated plum stocks; plum garden of around 300 trees over roughly 40 ares |
| Blooming season | Mid-February to early March |
| Access | About 30 min by car from JR Sendai Station; about 25 min from Noda IC, Minami-Kyushu Expressway |
| Admission | Free; parking available on site |
| Enquiries | Fujikawa Tenjin shrine office, tel. 0996-42-0753 |
References
- Database of National Cultural Properties (Agency for Cultural Affairs) — Fujikawa Tenjin no Garyubai
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/401/2991
- Satsumasendai Tourism and Products Guide "Kokoro" — Fujikawa Tenjin
- https://satsumasendai.gr.jp/spotlist/1844
- Kagoshima Prefecture Tourism Site — Fujikawa Tenjin (Garyubai)
- https://www.kagoshima-kankou.com/guide/10446
- Kagoshima Prefecture Association of Shinto Shrines — Fujikawa Tenjin Spring Festival and Garyubai
- https://www.kagojinjacho.or.jp/tanbou/180/
- Satsumasendai Tourism and Products Guide "Kokoro" — Statue of Saigo Takamori's Dog Tsun
- https://satsumasendai.gr.jp/spotlist/1888
Last verified: 2026.05.23