Wilson’s Stump

Wilson’s Stump is the remains of a gigantic two-thousand--year-old yakusugi cut down around five hundred years ago. With a trunk circumference of 13.8 m, the stump is surpassed in size only by the colossal Jomon Sugi. The stump’s hollow is about 16 m2, and a small shrine is found inside. When standing inside the stump, hikers can see a heart-shaped hole above them. Three descendants of Wilson’s Stump also grow nearby, providing a good example of fallen tree regeneration.

The stump was named after the English botanist Ernest Henry Wilson (1876–1930), an early advocate of the preservation of Yakushima’s forest. He discovered the stump during an expedition in 1914.

The yakusugi is thought to have been cut under orders of the sixteenth-century warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537–1598). In 1586, after winning a war against the Shimazu clan of Kagoshima, he forced them to deliver Yakushima’s durable wood to build a temple to commemorate his exploits. The cutting of this tree was the beginning of a long history of lumbering on Yakushima. Wilson’s Stump can be found along the Okabu Trail.

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