The Akou Tree

In the windbreak that runs between the shore and the hotel stands one tree that catches the eye above all others.

It is the akou (Ficus superba), whose name in Chinese characters means “banyan with red fruit”.

At Hyakuna Garan we built a room facing this great akou and named it Akou no Ma, the Akou Room.

Seen from this room, with the sea behind it, the akou flings out its branches with abandon, and has a strange allure that holds your gaze.

When the time comes, it sheds all its leaves at once, and before long bursts into flame-like new leaves and sets fruit: a cycle at once unhesitating and brimming with life.

Akou no Ma

Look into the akou and you discover that it is pollinated in a way quite unlike most trees.

For most plants, pollen is carried by all kinds of natural messengers, from wind and water to butterflies, bees and birds, and so they carry on life together.

The akou relies on just one kind of tiny insect, the akou fig wasp. What is more, it lets the wasps live inside its fruit and raises them there.

The female wasps grow up and leave the fruit, but they too live for only a few days…

In that short time they carry the pollen and lay their eggs in new fruit.

Perhaps because of this demanding partnership, the akou fruits in short cycles.

In western Yakushima, it is said, about a third of all akou trees are in fruit at any one time, so there is never a season without fruit.

It is as though the trees keep up some exquisite form of communication, and the mysteries of the akou never cease to fascinate.

Akou fruit

The akou tree, seen from the corridor of Hyakuna Garan