Botanical atlas

Japanese Cedar

Cryptomeria japonica

For well over a thousand years, sugi has stood at the heart of Japanese life, its towering, arrow-straight trunks felled to raise temples, shrine gates, and the great wooden halls of old capitals like Nara and Kyoto. Entire sacred groves of ancient Cryptomeria were, and still are, planted around Shinto shrines, where the oldest individuals are treated as living deities in their own right. The fragrant wood was long favored for sake casks and soy sauce barrels, its resin lending a faint cedary sweetness to the liquid aged inside, while shavings and bark were burned as incense to scent temples and homes. It has never been a common ingested medicine, but its aromatic wood and foliage have a long folk history of being burned, worn, or kept close for their scent and presumed purifying qualities rather than eaten or brewed.

In tradition.

For well over a thousand years, sugi has stood at the heart of Japanese life, its towering, arrow-straight trunks felled to raise temples, shrine gates, and the great wooden halls of old capitals like Nara and Kyoto. Entire sacred groves of ancient Cryptomeria were, and still are, planted around Shinto shrines, where the oldest individuals are treated as living deities in their own right. The fragrant wood was long favored for sake casks and soy sauce barrels, its resin lending a faint cedary sweetness to the liquid aged inside, while shavings and bark were burned as incense to scent temples and homes. It has never been a common ingested medicine, but its aromatic wood and foliage have a long folk history of being burned, worn, or kept close for their scent and presumed purifying qualities rather than eaten or brewed.

Safety.

Japanese cedar pollen is one of Japan's most significant seasonal allergens, causing widespread allergic rhinitis (kafunsho) each spring, and its sawdust can irritate airways too. The essential oil is for external, diffused use only and should never be taken by mouth.