The City of Yokohama opens one new Citizen Forest per year these days. Admitting its size is getting smaller, I think it is something we try to preserve our greenery in the megalopolis Tokyo. Fiscal 2020 is the turn for Nagatsuda-shuku Citizen Forest that 長津田宿市民の森 is near JR/Tokyu Nagatsuda Station JR/東急 長津田駅. It opened to the public on April 1st, this year. Let’s have a look of the place.
The access to the forest is easy. Please leave Nagatsuda Station from its south exit. When we come out, on our right is an office building for JA Yokohama. Please pass in front of it, and turn right at its corner. It’s an alley way running along the tracks of JR and Tokyu. Walking for 5 minutes or so along the busy train services, our road becomes a slope. Please keep going until you find a “peak” in front of you, and another slope on your left, at the corner of Konpirajinja Yasaka Shrine 金毘羅神社八坂神社. Whichever slope you take, we can reach to the Forest, but today let’s take the left one that is going to the back entrance to Nagatsuda Elementary 長津田小学校. In 20m or so, the slope reaches to its peak (and the entrance to Nagatsuda Elementary). On your right is a small unpaved trekking road which runs along the school building. Please take this one, and soon you’ll see the signpost saying ”Nagatsuda-shuku Citizen Forest.”
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| The south exit of Nagatsuda
Station |
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| Please take this road shown by
the arrow. Oh, this branch of JA Yokohama does a small farmers’ market from 14:00 every Tuesday and Friday. Young farmers of the area bring their fresh produce for a reasonable price. |
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| The road turning at the corner
of JA is like this. Adelante, por favor. |
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| We can see the “peak” over there. |
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| Let’s take the left road. Could you see red painting over there? It’s the back entrance to Nagatsuda Elementary. The forest on our right is for the Shrine. |
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| At the Elementary, there is
this signpost showing us the direction to the Forest. |
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| This road eventually becomes like this … |
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| to here, the entrance to Nagatsuda-shuku Citizen Forest. |
The structure of the strolling
route for the 3 ha Forest is damned simple (; map, here). There is the central
road going from the southwest to the north east of the Forest. The northeastern
exit is where we’ve reached from Nagatsuda Station. There are 3 short sideways
that allow us to experience inside of the Forest. As for the main road for Tsunashima
Citizen Forest (; my post on June 26, 2015), it seems to me, the central road
running the Forest is a commuter road that is a shortcut to Nagatsuda Station.
So, lots of locals are coming and going through the forest. The central road is
a ridge way and the Citizen Forest mainly expands to the north slope of a hill.
Area-wise, roughly, bottom 1/2 of the hill is off-limit for casual visitors
since it is designated as a nature conservation area.
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| The main way |
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| We can easily recognize where the sideways go from the center road. The Forest has these picnic benches. |
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| Off-limit areas are fenced. |
It’s easy to walk
Nagatsuda-shuku Citizen Forest. We go the main road and take sideways as we
like. All the sideways are visible from the arterial now, because the mowing
and thinning were done just recently. It’s easy to spot small plants here and
there on the forest floor. The Forest is a baby as a Citizen Forest, and so the
management of the place is still at the beginning. I think the place has a
potential to show us the type of ecosystem typical for Tama Hills, eventually. Roughly
4/5 of Nagatsuda Forest is facing to the north. Possible natural ecosystem here
could be for north-facing slope of Tama Hills 多摩丘陵. Mr.
Hideshige Uchino 内野秀重, the
director of Nagaike Park for Hachioji City 八王子市立長池公園,
Tokyo, once told us north-facing slope with natural vegetation these days is
not so common for Tama Hills due to heavy housing development. We may find
natural characteristics for north-facing hillside of Tama Hills in
Nagatsuda-shuku Forest in few years.
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| On a new stump, there came lots of wood ears (Auricularia auricula-judae). |
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| The Forest had a small colony
of Tricyrtis hirta. Please treat them carefully … |
Tama Hills lie on a sort of
ecological border between northern and southern Japanese vegetation. The
strikingly clear-cut frontier is the approach to Yakuo-in Temple of Mt. Takao 高尾山薬王院 (; my post on December 22, 2017) where
northwest slope consists of deciduous broadleaved trees and southeast is for
evergreen broadleaved trees. Warm air from the Pacific Ocean and chilly winds
from Siberia hit the bumps of Tama Hills and create a mosaic of wood zones. Not
only trees, but also forest floors can show this complexity, especially in the
forests of northern Tama Hills. Secretly known unique ecosystem for
north-facing slope of Tama Hills is in my beloved Niiharu Citizen Forest 新治市民の森. Although it’s not so striking as for Mt. Takao,
north-facing slopes of Niiharu tend to have plants that incline to colder soil,
such as western bracken fern (Pteridium aquilinum). Nagatsuda-shuku
Forest can also be a good exhibit of Tama Hills, I expect, because of its
direction.
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| Pretty flowers of Oplismenus undulatifolius |
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| Their Agrimonia Pilosa var. japónica is large. |
When you leave from the
Forest, you can take the left road which is paved, that will lead us to the
small peak we saw when we came from Nagatsuda Station. This route goes through
a small community that I guess was for landlords of Nagatsuda-shuku Forest. Beyond
the rail tracks, we can see rolling hills of housings typical for Tokyo’s
suburbia. Before, the area was of forests and grassland suitable for exercise of
Japanese Imperial Army. In the shrine we passed to enter the Forest, there is a
large monument commemorating Crown Prince Hirohito 裕仁 (Emperor Showa 昭和天皇)
observed almost a century ago a massive drill. The reason why the forest has a
name with “Shuku 宿” is,
the community spreading south of the Forest was a post town for Oyama Street 大山街道, once popular among pilgrims from Edo (Tokyo) to
Mt. Oyama 大山 (; my post on March 17, 2017). Actually, Nagatsuda area has several
historical remnants typical for Japanese villages near the capital city Edo. If
you live near there, you can explore the memory of village-suburbia life of
Japan centuries ago. Here is a walking map you may be interested. These days
such “Exploring Our Neighbor” walk is uber popular in Yokohama. Reason?
COVID-19, of course. It may be safer in open air than in crowded shopping
center, isn’t it?
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| The left road is going down. The forest on our right is also a part of Nagatsuda-shuku Citizen Forest, but it is off-limit for visitors. |
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| Some trees in the closed area of
the Citizen Forest are observable from the road. This is a pretty Euonymus hamiltonianus Wall. |
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| I’ve found a large colony of Juniper haircap moss (Polytrichum juniperinum)! |
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| The monument commemorating the Crown Prince. |
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| Hmmmmmmm … typical suburbia … |
Yokohama Municipal Government Creative Environment Policy Bureau 横浜市環境創造局
Phone: 045-311-2016
FAX: 045-316-8420
If you find environmental issues in Kanagawa Prefecture, please make a contact with Kanagawa Natural Environment Conservation Center 神奈川県自然環境保全センター
657 Nanasawa, Atsugi City, 243-0121
〒243－0121 厚木市七沢657
Phone: 046-248-0323
You can send an enquiry to them by clicking the bottom line of their homepage at http://www.pref.kanagawa.jp/div/1644/
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