下田のイチイ
この一本のイチイ（Taxus cuspidata）の木は、かつて下田という辺境の集落のシンボルだった。集落の中心には覚順寺があり、その境内には樹齢200年のこの木があった。1887年に後継者問題で廃寺となったが、下田は合掌造りの家に住んでいた7世帯が離村する1950年代までに存在した。今では、高さ14.6メートルの白川村最大のイチイの木が往時を偲ばせているだけで、下田の平地はほとんどが養豚場になっている。
イチイは成長が非常に遅いが、木が比較的柔らかく彫刻がしやすいため、現在の岐阜県にあたる地域では伝統的に装飾用木彫の材料として使われてきた。
Shimoda Yew Tree
This lone Japanese yew tree (ichii; Taxus cuspidata) was once a symbol of the remote village of Shimoda. At the center of the village was Kakujunji Temple, the grounds of which included the now 200-year-old tree. The temple closed in 1887 due to a succession dispute, but Shimoda endured until the 1950s, when the seven families who had lived in the village’s traditional gassho-style farmhouses moved away. Today, the 14.6-meter-tall yew tree—the largest of its kind in the Shirakawa municipality—serves as a reminder of the former village; most of the flat land in what used to be Shimoda has been turned into a pig farm.
Japanese yew trees grow very slowly, but the wood is relatively soft and easy to sculpt, and has traditionally been used as material for ornamental carving in the area covered by present-day Gifu Prefecture.
