Incense Stick

A Camphor Tree Older Than the Shrine It Shelters

Step through the modest torii of Mitsushima Shrine in southern Kadoma City, and the everyday geometry of suburban Osaka falls away. Directly in front of the worship hall rises a camphor trunk so broad that ten adults joining hands cannot fully encircle it. This is the Kungai-Kusu (薫蓋クス), a tree of the species Cinnamomum camphora whose girth at chest height measures roughly 12.5 meters. The Agency for Cultural Affairs designated it a National Natural Monument on May 30, 1938, citing its rank among the most outstanding camphor specimens in Japan.

The base flares into a knot of woody swellings and surface roots, and from the upper trunk five massive branches lift away at startlingly different angles, spreading the crown roughly 40 meters from east to west. The estimated age is in excess of one thousand years, which would place its germination somewhere in the middle of the Heian period, generations before the first samurai government took shape in Kamakura.

The Shrine That Grew Around It

Mitsushima Shrine sits on flat, alluvial ground a short distance from the old course of the Yodo River. The warm, well-watered soil of this lowland has nurtured several large camphors in the area, but the Kungai-Kusu eclipses them all and is considered the largest tree of any species in Osaka Prefecture. The shrine was known as Sannō Gongen (山王権現) for most of its history, taking its lineage from Hiyoshi Taisha in Ōmi Province, and was renamed Mitsushima Shrine in the third year of Meiji (1870).

Three deities are enshrined here: Amaterasu-ōmikami, Ōnamuchi-no-mikoto, and Susanoo-no-mikoto. The grounds themselves are compact, almost residential in scale, which makes the encounter with the tree all the more striking. Walk in from the street and the great trunk is already directly above the prayer hall, leaning toward visitors rather than hiding behind the architecture.

The Name in a Waka Poem

At the foot of the tree stands a small stone monument inscribed with a waka by Chigusa Arifumi (千種有文, 1815–1869), a court noble of the Murakami Genji line who served as Sashō (Lesser Captain) of the Imperial Guard and worked alongside figures such as Iwakura Tomomi in the political currents of the late Edo and early Meiji years. The poem reads, in approximate sense: "This camphor is no lesser than the pine of Cathay beneath which one once sheltered from a passing shower." The word kungai (薫蓋), literally "fragrant canopy," is drawn directly from the imagery of the verse and gives the tree both its formal name and its alternative reading, kungai-shō.

Camphor wood is naturally aromatic. On a still summer afternoon, the air around the trunk carries a faint resinous scent that explains the poet's choice of the word "fragrant" rather than simply "broad" or "shading."

Why a Single Tree Became a National Monument

Natural Monument status under the 1919 Historical Sites, Places of Scenic Beauty, and Natural Monuments Preservation Law (the predecessor to today's Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties) is rarely granted to individual trees. The designation criteria cited for the Kungai-Kusu fall under the category covering famous, giant, ancient, and unusually formed trees, as well as planted-stock originals, avenue trees, and sacred groves. The official record describes the trunk as bearing numerous knobby protrusions at its base and notes that its chest-height circumference of roughly 12.5 meters places it among the most exceptional camphors in the country.

The recognition has been reinforced in later decades. In 1990, during the International Garden and Greenery Exposition (Hana Expo) held in nearby Tsurumi, the tree was selected as one of the New Hundred Famous Trees of Japan. It also appears on the Osaka Midori no Hyakusen list of the prefecture's hundred most distinctive natural sites, and the camphor itself was adopted as the official tree of Kadoma City in January 1973.

Looking at the Tree Closely

Visitors who stop a few minutes longer than the usual prayer will notice details that photographs flatten. The bark is colonized in places by moss and small ferns, particularly on the north face where the sun reaches less often. The five principal branches twist as they rise, recalling the descriptions of dragons that local guides cheerfully apply to them. The base swellings, which the original 1938 designation document records as 瘤起 (lumpy growths), are deeply furrowed and create natural alcoves where leaves and rainwater collect.

A small ramp protects the surface roots immediately in front of the worship hall, a recent addition meant to keep foot traffic from compacting the soil. The trunk is partially hollow inside, a condition not unusual in camphors of this age, yet the canopy continues to leaf out densely each spring and the tree shows every sign of vigorous health.

Sources differ slightly on the dimensions, with the shrine and the Osaka Shinto Association recording a trunk circumference closer to 13.1 meters and a height of about 30 meters. The Agency for Cultural Affairs uses the original 1938 measurements. Visitors comparing signage may notice the small discrepancy.

Practical Notes for Visitors

The shrine sits in a quiet residential pocket of Mitsujima, a former village now folded into Kadoma's southern wards. There is no admission fee, and the grounds are open during daylight hours. The shrine office, when staffed, issues a handwritten goshuin (red seal) bearing the name of the camphor. A modest parking area at the rear accommodates roughly eight cars between 9:00 and 17:00.

Public transport is straightforward: take the Osaka Metro Nagahori Tsurumi-ryokuchi Line to Kadomaminami Station and walk about eight minutes from Exit 4. From central Osaka the journey takes around 30 minutes. Visitors arriving by Keihan Main Line train can catch a Keihan bus from the south side of Furukawabashi Station bound for Kadoma Danchi and alight at the Mitsushima stop, one minute on foot from the shrine.

Nearby, Tsurumi-ryokuchi Park (about two kilometers north) offers a contrasting kind of green space, with the legacy plantings of the 1990 Hana Expo still on display. For a longer day, the Kuzuha and Hirakata districts further east along the Keihan Line preserve old merchant townhouses and lively summer festivals.