Beolgyogoeup-ri Ginkgo

The ginkgo is a tree so ancient it is often called a living fossil, and it is found in Korea, Japan, China and elsewhere. It is said to have been brought to Korea together with Confucianism and Buddhism from China. Because its autumn foliage is strikingly beautiful, it resists pests and disease, and it casts a broad, dense shade, it has long been planted as a pavilion tree or a roadside tree. The Beolgyo Goeup-ri Ginkgo is estimated to be about 500 years old. It once stood 40 metres tall with a girth of 10 metres, but its original trunk burned and new shoots grew up from the base, so that it is now hard to tell the original trunk from the later growth. A distinctive feature is the wart-like aerial growths, called yuju (乳柱, literally "milk pillars"), that have developed on its branches. Yuju are thought to be a kind of root grown into an abnormal shape; they are common in Japan but rarely seen in Korea, and together with the ginkgo at Seoul's Munmyo Shrine, a Natural Monument, this tree shows the same unusual phenomenon. The villagers hold this tree sacred and perform a rite of prayer before it every year at the start of the lunar New Year. Apart from the chosen officiant of the rite, no one was permitted to leave their house on the night the rite was held. According to local account, one year after the rite had ended, a lit candle set the tree alight, and a burning branch fell onto the house next door and set it on fire, at which point the villagers finally came outside. The base of the ginkgo burned at that time, but the tree did not die; new shoots grew again to form the tree that stands today. Together with the ginkgo at Seoul's Munmyo Shrine, this tree bears the yuju growths that are an unusual phenomenon in Korea, and it is protected by the village as a sacred tree. It is also believed that boiling and eating its branches cures respiratory ailments, and it is used as medicine for this purpose.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Boseong, Jeonnam & Gwangju

Designation

Provincial Monument · 시도기념물