A Ginkgo That Fruits From Its Leaves
In a temple courtyard in the old post town of Samegai, in Maibara, Shiga Prefecture, stands a ginkgo tree that does something no ordinary ginkgo does. Most ginkgo trees carry their seeds on slender stalks. On this one, the seeds appear along the edges of the leaves, in the spot where the veins swell and thicken toward the tip. Residents of the surrounding houses gave the tree a name generations ago: the tree that bears fruit without flowering.
This is the Ohatsuki Ginkgo of Ryōtoku-ji, designated a National Natural Monument on 17 December 1929. It grows in the western corner of Ryōtoku-ji, a temple of the Jōdo Shinshū Hongan-ji-ha branch of Pure Land Buddhism. The tree now reaches roughly 20 meters, and its trunk measures about 4 meters around. It is a female tree, and its estimated age is around 165 years, which would place its sprouting somewhere in the middle of the nineteenth century.
The word ohatsuki, written 御葉附, names exactly this peculiarity: ginkgo nuts forming on the face or edge of a leaf rather than on a separate stalk. It is not a distinct species. It is a variant form of the familiar ginkgo, and a very uncommon one.
A Tree Rooted in a Nakasendō Post Town
Samegai was the sixty-first of the sixty-nine stations along the Nakasendō, the inland highway that linked Edo with Kyoto. The town grew along the Jizō River, a stream fed by spring water cool enough to hold near 14 degrees Celsius through the year. That spring, called Isame-no-Shimizu, gave Samegai its name and appears in Japan's oldest chronicles, the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki. In 2015 the wider area was recognized as a Japan Heritage site for its long relationship with water.
Ryōtoku-ji sits roughly in the middle of the old post town. The ginkgo grows just inside the temple gate, set back a little from the street, and it has grown tall enough that the upper crown shows above the tiled roofs of the surrounding houses. Walk the old highway and you can spot it before you reach the temple itself. From the Isamebashi bridge over the Jizō River, the tree stands about 50 meters to the east, on the north side of the road. A stone marker beside the road records its status as a Natural Monument.
Why This Tree Became a Monument
Across Japan, only about twenty ohatsuki ginkgo trees have ever been confirmed. Of those, just seven hold the rank of National Natural Monument, and the Ryōtoku-ji tree is one of the seven. Two other ohatsuki ginkgo are known within Shiga Prefecture, at Tōmon-in in Moriyama and at Seian-ji in Ōtsu, but the Ryōtoku-ji tree carries the national designation.
The reason has less to do with size or age than with what the tree reveals. Between August and early November the ginkgo produces a heavy crop of nuts. Most hang in the ordinary way. A portion, though, form directly on the leaves. A single leaf may carry one or two seeds; the most productive leaves bear five to eight. These leaf-borne nuts tend to be small, narrow, and oval, often imperfectly developed, and noticeably unlike the rounded nuts of an ordinary ginkgo.
Botanists read this as a kind of reversion. The arrangement resembles ginkgo specimens known only from fossils, which suggests the tree is expressing an ancestral trait that most modern ginkgo have lost. It also lends weight to a long-standing idea in plant science: that a flower is, in origin, a modified branch or leaf. The local saying about a tree "that fruits without flowering" turns out to be a folk observation of a genuine evolutionary puzzle.
What to Look For at the Tree
The ginkgo rewards a visit in any season, but autumn invites the closest look. As the foliage turns, walk up to the lower branches and examine the leaves along their edges. The leaf-borne seeds are not obvious from a distance. They sit where the veins broaden, and finding one takes patience. Temple staff or local residents can sometimes point visitors to a branch where they show more clearly.
Step back, and the form of the whole tree comes into view. The trunk divides into limbs at roughly 8 meters above the ground, and from there a mass of slender branches droops downward. The crown is dense and the tree is vigorous, far larger now than the records from 1929 describe. At the time of designation the trunk measured about 2.5 meters around and the tree stood roughly 12 meters tall. In the decades since, it has close to doubled in both girth and height.
Because the tree grows on temple grounds, visitors are asked to keep to the edges of the courtyard and to treat the space as the quiet religious site it is.
Around Samegai
The walk to the ginkgo is itself part of the visit. The Jizō River runs the length of the old town, clear and shallow, and from late spring into autumn it carries baikamo, a water plant of the buttercup family whose small white flowers open just at the surface. The blooms are at their best from July into mid-September. The same cold, steady water supports the hariyo, a rare freshwater fish that survives in only a handful of places.
Samegai-juku has kept its toiya-ba, the office that once managed porters and packhorses for the post station, in a well-preserved form that is unusual among the Nakasendō towns. A short distance away, in the Samegai gorge, the Samegai Trout Farm has been raising trout since 1878 and is one of the oldest fish-farming operations in the country. For visitors arriving by train, Samegai Station on the JR Tōkaidō Main Line is about a ten-minute walk from the post town.
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Q&A
- Can I actually see the seeds growing on the leaves?
- Yes, though it takes a careful eye. The leaf-borne seeds appear from August into early November, sitting along the leaf edge where the veins thicken. They are small and easy to miss from a distance, so look closely at the lower branches.
- When is the best time to visit?
- Autumn is ideal. The seeds are present through October, and the surrounding leaves turn gold. A summer visit pairs the tree with the baikamo flowering in the Jizō River, which peaks from July to mid-September.
- What does "ohatsuki" mean?
- Ohatsuki, written 御葉附, refers to a ginkgo whose nuts form on the surface or edge of the leaf rather than on a stalk. It is a rare natural variation, not a separate species, and only about twenty such trees are confirmed in Japan.
- Is the temple itself open to visitors?
- Ryōtoku-ji is a working Pure Land temple. The tree grows in the courtyard near the gate and can be viewed from the grounds. Please keep to the courtyard edges, stay quiet, and respect the religious setting.
- How do I get there?
- Take the JR Tōkaidō Main Line to Samegai Station, then walk about ten minutes into the old post town. The tree stands roughly 50 meters east of the Isamebashi bridge, on the north side of the old Nakasendō.
Basic Information
| Name | Ohatsuki Ginkgo of Ryōtoku-ji (Ryōtoku-ji no Ohatsuki Ichō) |
|---|---|
| Location | Samegai, Maibara City, Shiga Prefecture |
| Designation | National Natural Monument |
| Date of Designation | 17 December 1929 (Shōwa 4) |
| Designation Criterion | Notable, giant, ancient, or deformed trees, and similar (Criterion 1) |
| Species | Ohatsuki ginkgo, a variant form of Ginkgo biloba; female tree |
| Size | Height about 20 m; trunk girth about 4 m; first branching at about 8 m above ground |
| Estimated Age | About 165 years |
| Setting | Within the precinct of Ryōtoku-ji (Jōdo Shinshū Hongan-ji-ha) |
| Access | About 10 minutes on foot from Samegai Station, JR Tōkaidō Main Line |
| Viewing | Visible from the temple grounds; leaf-borne seeds appear August to early November |
References
- Database of National Cultural Properties, Agency for Cultural Affairs — Ohatsuki Ginkgo of Ryōtoku-ji
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/401/1563
- Ohatsuki Ginkgo of Ryōtoku-ji — Maibara City Official Website
- https://www.city.maibara.lg.jp/kanko/rekishi/shitei/4622.html
- Ohatsuki Ginkgo of Ryōtoku-ji — Nagahama, Maibara & Oku-Biwako Tourism Information
- https://kitabiwako.jp/spot/spot_411
- Nakasendō Samegai-juku — Maibara City Official Website
- https://www.city.maibara.lg.jp/soshiki/keizai_kankyo/shoko_kanko/kanko_info/spot/3507.html
Last verified: 2026.05.25