The , formerly the Asakawa Experiment Forest and sometimes also known as the Tama Botanical Park, is an

arboretum An arboretum (: arboreta) is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees and shrubs of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, many modern arbor ...

located at the foot of

Mount Takao is a mountain in the city of Hachiōji, Tokyo, Japan. It is protected within Meiji no Mori Takao Quasi-National Park. Standing tall and located within an hour of downtown Tokyo, it is a popular hiking spot, with eight hiking trails and more ...

, 1833-81 Todori, Hachiōji, Tokyo,

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. It is open daily except Mondays; an admission fee is charged.

History

The site was previously a battlefield where

Hojo Ujiteru Hojo or Hōjō may refer to: Hojo or HoJo: *Howard Johnson's, a U.S. chain of restaurants and hotels *A nickname for a number of people named Howard Johnson *A nickname for Howard Jones (British musician), an synthpop singer, musician and songwr ...

fought

Takeda Shingen was daimyō, daimyo of Kai Province during the Sengoku period of Japan. Known as "the Tiger of Kai", he was one of the most powerful daimyo of the late Sengoku period, and credited with exceptional military prestige. Shingen was based in a p ...

, then placed under custody of the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

. In 1921 it became an experimental station under the custody of the Forestry Management Division of the Ministry of Imperial Household. Today it is a branch laboratory of the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute.

Gardens

The garden includes 13 hectares of natural forest which consists mainly of

Abies firma ''Abies firma'', the momi fir, is a species of fir native to central and southern Japan, growing at low to moderate altitudes of 50–1200 m. ''Abies firma'' is a medium-sized to large evergreen coniferous tree growing to tall and in trunk dia ...

and

Pinus densiflora ''Pinus densiflora'', also called the Japanese red pine, the Japanese pine, or Korean red pine, is a species of pine tree native to East Asia and Siberia. In China, the plant is known as 赤松 (pinyin: chì sōng, literally "red pine"). Distrib ...

, and broad-leaf evergreens such as

Quercus glauca ''Quercus glauca'' ( syn. ''Cyclobalanopsis glauca''), commonly called ring-cupped oak or Japanese blue oak, is a tree in the beech family (Fagaceae). It is native to eastern and southern Asia, where it is found in Afghanistan, Bhutan, China, nor ...

and

Castanopsis cuspidata ''Castanopsis cuspidata'' (Japanese chinquapin; Japanese tsuburajii, 円椎) is a species of ''Castanopsis'' native to southern Japan and southern Korea. It is a medium-sized evergreen tree growing to 20–30 m tall, related to beech and oak. T ...

var. sieboldii. It also contains an arboretum with about 1,000 kinds of domestic and foreign trees, including 2,000

cherry tree A cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus ''Prunus'', and is a fleshy drupe (stone fruit). Commercial cherries are obtained from cultivars of several species, such as the sweet ''Prunus avium'' and the sour ''Prunus cerasus''. The name ...

s representing 250 cherry varieties.

References

Tama Forest Science Garden (Japanese)

''Forest Succession in the Tama Forest Science Garden''
* Toyoda Takeshi and Tanimoto Takeo, "Forest Succession in the Tama Forest Science Garden (the Asakawa Experiment Forest), Hachioji, Central Japan", ''Bulletin of the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute'', no. 377, 2000, pages 1–60. ISSN 0916-4405. Arboreta in Japan Botanical gardens in Japan Gardens in Tokyo Hachiōji, Tokyo {{arboretum-stub

History

Gardens

See also

References