Warm weather brings ``Garyubai'' into full bloom about two weeks earlier in Satsumasendai, Kagoshima. Approximately 300 plum trees are planted in Fujikawa Tenjin, and 55 of these are designated as national natural monuments as ``Garyu plums,'' whose trunks and branches look like dragons crawling through the earth.
As the tree grows, its branches fall in all directions, and roots re-emerge from where they touch the ground to form a new stock.