Suicide forest

HISTORY OF THE AOKIGAHARA FOREST

Aokigahara is a dense forest at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan. The foliage here is so thick that it has came to be known as 'Sea of Trees'. The forest thrives on 30 sq. km of volcanic land and is just around 2-hour journey from Tokyo city.
The forest has a historical reputation as a home to ghosts of the dead in Japanese mythology. At least since the 1960s, Aokigahara has become associated with suicide, eventually becoming known in English by the nickname "Suicide Forest" and gaining a reputation as one of the world's most-used Suicide sites.The western edge of Aokigahara, where there are several caves that fill with ice in winter, is a popular destination for tourists and school trips. Parts of Aokigahara are very dense, and the porous lava rock absorbs sound, contributing to a sense of solitude that some visitors attribute to the forest.

Biodiversity, flora and fauna

The Aokigahara forest is covered by thick, dense vegetation comprising of both evergreen, coniferous trees like Japanese cypress and hemlock firs, and broad-leaf trees like Japanese andromeda, longstalk hollies, Fuji cherries, and maples. The thin layers of topsoil in these woodlands forces the trees to stretch their roots along the forest floor, lending them a crawly-creepy appearance. The thick undergrowth in the forest also makes it highly impenetrable, especially in its interior parts. There is not much data regarding the wildlife of the Aokigahara forest. Mammals include the Asian black bear, small Japanese mole, bats, mice, deer, fox, boar, wild rabbit, Japanese mink and Japanese squirrel. Birds include great tit, willow tit, long-tailed tit, great spotted woodpecker, pygmy woodpecker, bush warbler, Eurasian jay, Japanese white-eye, Japanese thrush, brown-headed thrush, Siberian thrush, Hodgson's hawk-cuckoo, Japanese grosbeak, lesser cuckoo, black-faced bunting, oriental turtle dove, and common cuckoo. Deeper in the forest there are many herbaceous flowering plants including Artemisia princeps, Cirsium nipponicum var. incomptum, Corydalis incisa, Erigeron annuus, Geranium nepalense, Kalimeris pinnatifida, Maianthemum dilatatum, Oplismenus undulatifolius and Reynoutria japonica

Japanese squirrel

The Japanese squirrel is a tree squirrel in the genus Sciurus endemic to Japan. It was described by Dutch zoologist Coenraad Jacob Temminck in 1844. The Japanese squirrel's range includes the islands of Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu. Recently, populations on south-western Honshū and Shikoku decreased, and those on Kyūshū disappeared. One of the factors affecting the local extinction of this species seems to be forest fragmentation by humans.In certain areas, up to 35% of its diet can come from walnuts.

Asian black bear

The Asian black bear (Ursus thibetanus), also known as the Asiatic black bear, moon bear and white-chested bear, is a medium-sized bear species native to Asia that is largely adapted to an arboreal lifestyle.
The Asian black bear has black fur, a light brown muzzle, and a distinct white patch on the chest, which is sometimes V-shaped. Its ears are bell shaped, proportionately longer than those of other bears, and stick out sideways from the head. Its tail is short, around 11 cm (4.3 in) long. Adults measure 70–100 cm (28–39 in) at the shoulder, and 120–190 cm (47–75 in) in length.

Silver-washed fritillary

The silver-washed fritillary butterfly is deep orange with black spots on the upperside of its wings, and has a wingspan of 54–70 mm, with the male being smaller and paler than the female. The underside is green, and, unlike other fritillaries, has silver streaks instead of silver spots, hence the name silver-washed. The caterpillar is black brown with two yellow lines along its back and long reddish-brown spines.The male possesses scent scales on the upperside of the forewing that run along veins one to four. The scent produced from these scales attracts females and helps to distinguish it from other species.

Curetis acuta

Curetis acuta, the angled sunbeam, is a species of butterfly belong to the lycaenid family. It is found in Indomalayan realm.Forewing with broad black margins, broadest at the apex and at the hinder angle; the inner border of the black margin almost evenly rounded, the black marginal band running inwards also on the hinder margin, narrowing rapidly basally and terminating about the middle; a black spot at the end of the cell running into the costal black band; some greenish-brown irrorations at the base of the wing; apex very acute, the outer margin being somewhat concave below it, hinder angle triangular, hinder margin nearly as long as the costa, the outer margin consequently erect, though slightly sinuous.

Pinus densiflora

Pinus densiflora, also called the Japanese red pine, the Japanese pine, or Korean red pine, has a home range that includes Japan, the Korean Peninsula, northeastern China and the extreme southeast of Russia.In Japan it is known as akamatsu and mematsu. It is widely cultivated in Japan both for timber production and as an ornamental tree, and plays an important part in the classic Janpanese garden. Numerous cultivars have been selected, including the variegated semi-dwarf Oculus Draconis, the pendulous, often contorted Pendula and the multi-trunked 'Umbraculifera' (Japanese 多形松 tagyoushou, sometimes spelled as tanyosho).

Tsuga diversifolia

Tsuga diversifolia, commonly known as the northern Japanese hemlock, or in Japanese, kometsuga, is a species of conifer native to the Japanese islands of Honshu, Kyushu, and Shikoku. Tsuga diversifolia is an evergreen tree that attains heights of 25 m (80 feet). The crown is narrow, dense and conical. Young shoots are short, palely pubescent and bright orange to red-brown in colour. The densely arranged needles are linear-oblong and 5 to 15 mm (0.20 to 0.59 inches) long and up to 2.4 mm (0.094 inches) wide. They are a dark green in colour, glossy and furrowed above with two chalk white stomatal bands below.

Fugaku Wind Cave

Sample text. Click to select the text box. Click again or double click to start editing the textFugaku Wind Cave, 201 meters long with an average height of 8.7 meters, is found in the Aokigahara area. It is so named from Fugaku , a literary name for Mount Fuji, and Fūketsu for wind cave, because there is enough circulation of air on the cave.The walls of the cave are mostly made of basalt.Inside the cave, there are icicles even in summer, lava terraces and rope-like lava forms. From the Edo period to the Meiji period (ca. 1600 to 1900) this cave was used to keep the eggs of silk worms.Fugaku Wind Cave along with Narusawa Ice Cave nearby is managed by Fuji Sightseeing Industry Co. of Fuji Express Group. The souvenir shop at the entrance was renovated recently and opened in 2012, as "Wood Station Wind Cave".

Narusawa Ice Cave

The Narusawa Ice Cave is a lava tube located in the Aokigahara forest, in the part that belongs to Narusawa Village, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan.
The Narusawa Ice Cave is 156 meters long measured along the visitor route with two lobes, with the width of 1.5 to eleven meters and the height of one to 3.6 meters. The average temperature inside the cave is about 3°C. The cave was long used as a natural refrigerator. During the Edo period, ice cut in this cave was sent to the shogun and his entourage in Edo. During the early 1900s, ice made here had been used in the refrigerator before the electric refrigerator arrived.