The Ashikaga Flower Park (Oldest Wisteria Tree), Tochigi, Japan

The Ashikaga Flower Park is a home of 144 years old wisteria in Tochigi, Japan and its home of more than 350 wisterias and other flowering plants covering 23 acres. At the center of the park is its main attraction: a 144-year-old tree believed to be the oldest living wisteria in Japan. The plant, named the "Great Miracle Wisteria," was recently highlighted in a video from Great Big Story. This particular tree features curtains of purple wisteria, but the park is also a great place to see white wisteria and the rarer yellow wisteria. 

The pink and purple blooms typical to the wisteria tree are spread wildly throughout, extending far and wide. The ginormous vines stretching out of the tree are held up by steel rods placed throughout. Otherwise, the weight of the branches would cause the tree to collapse in on itself–potentially trapping awed visitors inside.

This plant, located in Ashikaga Flower Park in Japan, is certainly not the largest in the world, but it still comes in at an impressive 1,990 square meters (or half an acre) and dates back to around 1870 (the largest, at about 4,000 square meters, is the wisteria vine in Sierra Madre, California). Although wisterias can look like trees, they’re actually vines. Because its vines have the potential to get very heavy, this plant’s entire structure is held up on steel supports, allowing visitors to walk below its canopy and bask in the pink and purple light cast by its beautiful hanging blossoms.

In all seriousness, the steel rods make it possible to venture beneath this tree and see how stunning it looks from the underside. From inside, the light pours in through the brightly colored vines, reflecting off of the flowers in unimaginable ways.

Tourists and locals come to visit this tree, the sights that it offers never get old. Not only is the tree fun to gawk at from all angles, but the vines give off a lovely aroma, reminiscent of grapes. Wisterias look like they have regular tree branches, but they are actually vines. These vines can climb up any nearby support systems, and can grow as tall as 20 meters.