Weighing more than 700 pounds, the wood beam is from a Cryptomeria japonica tree, a type of cedar that grows in northern Japan.

Professor C. S. Sargent, in his Forest Flora of Japan, says, “Japan owes much of the beauty of its groves and gardens to the Cryptomeria.

This is followed on proceeding north by subtropical forests containing evergreen oaks, Podocarpus, tree-ferns, and, at higher elevations, Cryptomeria and Chamaecyparis.