Cleyera japonica?(sakaki) is a????native to warm areas of?,?,?,?,?, and northern??(Min and Bartholomew 2015). It can reach a height of 10 m. The??are 6¨C10?cm long, smooth, oval, leathery, shiny and dark green above, yellowish-green below, with deep furrows for the leaf stem. The bark is dark reddish brown and smooth. The small, scented, cream-white??open in early summer, and are followed later by??which start red and turn black when ripe. Sakaki is one of the common trees in the second layer of the evergreen??forests. It is considered sacred to Japanese??faith, and is one of the classical offerings at ³§³ó¾±²Ô³Ù¨ shrines.
Uses
Sakaki wood is used for making utensils (especially combs), building materials, and fuel. It is commonly planted in gardens, parks, and shrines.
Sakaki is considered a sacred tree in the??, along with other evergreens such as??(™u, Japanese cypress)?and??(Éñɼ, "sacred cryptomeria").??are traditionally encircled with??(Éñľ, "sacred trees")?constituting a??(ÉñÀé, "divine fence"). In Shinto ritual offerings to the "gods; spirits"?(Éñ,?), branches of sakaki are decorated with paper streamers () to make?.
In the myth about?Amaterasu?and the cave she hid in, after?Susanoo's?tantrum, when the??was forged and propped-up in front of?Amaterasu's?cave, it was said to have been perched-upon the branches of a sacred, 500-branched?Sakaki?tree facing the cave.
Linguistic background
The??word?sakaki?is written with the??character?, which combines??(ki, "tree; wood") and??(, "spirit; god") to form the meaning "sacred tree; divine tree".
The kanji?˜Y?first appears in the (12th-century)?, but two 8th-century transcriptions of the word?sakaki?are?ÏÍľ, meaning "sage tree" (, tr. Chamberlain 1981:64 "pulling up by pulling its roots a true?cleyera japonica?with five hundred [branches] from the Heavenly Mount Kagu"), and?Ûàľ, meaning "slope tree" (, tr. Aston 1896:42¨C43, "True Sakaki tree of the Heavenly Mt. Kagu").?Sakaki?(ÏÍľ?or?˜Y) is the title of Chapter 10 in? (ca. 1021).
The??of the pronunciation?sakaki?is uncertain. With linguistic consensus that the?-ki??denotes?ľ?("tree"), the two most probable etymologies are either?sakae-ki?("evergreen tree"), from?sakae?(–Ѥ¨, "flourishing; luxuriant; prosperous"); or?saka-ki?("boundary tree"), from?saka?(¾³, "boundary; border")?¨C an older form of modern reading?sakai, from the way that trees were often planted at a shrine's boundary line. Carr (1995:13) cites Japanese tradition and historical phonology to support the latter?. The Shogakukan?Kokugo Dai Jiten Dictionary?entry for this term also notes that the pitch accent for?sakayu?(–Ѥæ) ¨C the origin of modern?sakae?(–Ѥ¨) ¨C is different than what would be expected, suggesting that?saka-ki?(¾³Ä¾, "boundary tree") may be the more likely derivation (Shogakukan 1988).
