On a hot August day last year I took the train and tram to Sakai City in the south of Osaka. I wanted to see the ancient Japanese sago palm (sotetsu, Cycas revoluta), a member of the Cycad family, which grows in the grounds of Myokokuji Temple. The temple was first built in 1562 by a wealthy merchant called Aburaya, on land donated by Miyoshi Yukiyasu, who was ruler of Settsu, Kawachi and Izumi (present-day Osaka and Hyogo prefectures). The temple was also designated as an imperial temple. At a later date more land was donated by the Toyotomi and Tokugawa families.

In 1924, during the reign of Emperor Taisho, the Myokokuji Temple cycad was designated a natural monument. It is reckoned to be over 1,000 years old, has a diameter of over 1.7 meters and is 7 meters high -- perhaps the largest in the world, a candidate for the Guinness Book of Records! When Oda Nobunaga won supremacy (1568-1582) he is reported to have removed the cycad from Myokokuji and brought it to Azuchi Castle. According to legend, each night the tree would cry so loudly that Nobunaga gave it back to Myokokuji, where it has remained ever since.

Sotetsu are commonly planted in gardens and temples in the warmer regions of Japan. They give an almost tropical feeling to any garden, and they also grow well in containers. Dwarf forms of sotetsu are used for bonsai; variegated (fuiri) and cristata forms are also cultivated. Sotetsu are able to withstand dryness and survive well with little fertilizer.

There are approximately 17 species of cycad in the genus Cycas and they are distributed throughout an area stretching from East Africa and Madagascar to East and Southeast Asia and Australia. C. revoluta grows naturally in southern Japan, close to the sea in Miyazaki and Kumamoto prefectures in Kyushu, and also on islands in Okinawa Prefecture and southern China.

All species of cycad trees are cultivated as ornamental plants, the Japanese species C. revoluta most commonly so. Certain species are endangered in the wild from overcollecting.

Cycads are gymnosperms (rashishokubutsu-rui), a group which include conifers, the maidenhair tree (icho, Ginkgo biloba) and the dawn redwood (akebono-sugi, Metasequoia glyptostroboides). Like these trees, cycads are living fossils, having reached their climax in evolutionary development about 200 million years ago during the Mesozoic Era. Some species date back as far as 240 million years to the late Palaeozoic Era.

The second largest group of gymnosperms after conifers, cycads are distinguished from conifers by their palmlike leaves and reproductive characteristics. Their wood is spongy, and they grow very slowly and produce new leaves over a prolonged period.

The palmlike leaves are 50-150 cm long, arranged in a dense whorl at the top of the trunk. (Despite the resemblance to palm trees there is no relation between the two.) Each leaflet is 8-20 cm long, narrow and pointed at the end. The upper surface is shiny dark green, whereas the underside is covered with whitish fuzz. The trunk is columnar, and is covered with leaf stalks (petioles) of old leaves.

Male and female flowers are borne on different plants and open from June until August. The male flower is in the form of a cone at the top of the tree some 50-70 cm tall, rusty yellow in color. The female flower is leafy in appearance with ovules (young seeds) along the margins. The ripe seeds are reddish in color and 4 cm long.

Cycads have an interesting method of reproduction. The male flowers produce swimming male sex cells (sperm). Two are produced in each germinated pollen grain after the ovules are pollinated. The only other plant that produces motile sperm is Ginkgo biloba. Cycad trees are pollinated by the wind and by beetles.

The name sago palm comes from the soft, starch-rich edible tissues produced in some cycad species. These tissues must be carefully processed, however, for they contain free amino acids which eat away the copper and zinc in the central nervous system, leading to dementia, paralysis and even death; the condition is also known as Guam disease. Cycasin, one of the enzymes, is converted to methylazomthanol, one of the most toxic carcinogens known.

The area around Myokokuji Temple is steeped in history. There are many very old temples all within walking distance. Zenchoji Temple, built by Miyoshi Masakatsu in 1594, is a few hundred meters from Myokokuji; Sakai's city hall was located in this temple 1871-1881, and Emperor Meiji visited in 1877. Zenchoji's wooden main building, rebuilt in 1825, is still the largest wooden structure in Sakai.

Directly across from the Myokokuji main gate there is Honjuin Temple, site of the graves of 11 Tosa soldiers martyred in the Sakai Incident. In 1867 the French navy were conducting a survey of Osaka Bay. A party of French sailors landed in Sakai Feb. 15 without permission, and soldiers from the Tosa domain (Tosa is the old name for Kochi Prefecture in Shikoku) intercepted the French; in the ensuing skirmish 10 French sailors were killed. The French government immediately demanded an apology and $150,000 as a form of compensation. The Japanese government then ordered 20 Tosa soldiers to kill themselves by harakiri.

The orders were carried out Feb. 23, 1867 in the grounds of Myokokuji Temple, watched over by a French officer. After 11 deaths, the officer demanded that the self-inflicted form of execution be stopped. The dead soldiers were buried in Honjuin Temple by Yamanouchi Yodo, the former daimyo of Tosa. The graves were designated a national historical relic in 1938.