The Sakishima Suou Tree of Awa

Deep in the forest, there are moments when a sound simply disappears. Not the call of a bird, nor the sigh of the wind. Only the sound of centuries, slowly taking root. The Sakishima Suou Tree of Awa is one ancient giant that has lived through exactly such time. Close your eyes and imagine it: great board-like roots rising from the earth, rippling like waves frozen in wood. These are called buttress roots, and they are the tree's own invention — a form it devised to hold its enormous body upright on the soft, wet soils of the forest floor.Only a subtropical forest can raise a form like this. The Sakishima Suou once sent ships out to sea, its timber shaped into rudders; its bark yielded a red dye that wove itself quietly into the fabric of people's everyday lives. In the long-ago years when this very tree first pushed its shoot into the light, those who walked the forests of Yanbaru must have paused, just as you might now, standing in the shadow of these same rippling roots, wrapped in the same stillness. Doesn't it feel as though living time itself has taken on a shape before your eyes? By the time you finish listening to these words, the forest will have already begun to lay down one more day's worth of rings, in silence. The path does not end here. Deep into the forest this great tree has watched over all these years, the land is reaching out to draw you in. Name: The Sakishima Suou Tree of Awa Location: Awa, Kunigami Village, Okinawa Prefecture Characteristics: A subtropical giant tree bearing dramatic, wave-like buttress roots Species: Sakishima Suou — Sterculia floribunda (family Malvaceae / formerly Sterculiaceae) Historical uses: Rudder timber; source of red dye Access Map Official site: Kunigami Village Tourism Association