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Fuji-Hakone-Izu NP, Kanagawa
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Around 20,000 mizubashō (Asian skunk cabbages) bloom here in spring—but their showy white “petals” are actually bracts. The tiny true flowers crowd onto the central spike.
Staff once found a 1.1-metre plant with no record of it being introduced. They suspected it was yam konnyaku, a warm-region species, but its arrival remains a mystery; sowing its seeds produced about 30 seedlings.
A 2-hectare restoration zone beside the garden shows wetlands need care: after reed-cutting and burning faded, trees began taking over. Cutting and controlled burns now help sunlight reach low-growing marsh plants.
Japan’s first wetland-focused botanical garden opened here in 1976. The site had been rice paddies fed by the Hayakawa River, but its persistently wet ground made harvests disappointing—so it found a new purpose protecting local plants.
The garden’s sagisō, or egret orchid, really does look like a white heron with its wings spread; that resemblance gave the flower its Japanese name. It blooms in the garden’s wetland displays in summer.
The path is a miniature lesson in plant succession: its 8 areas move from lowland to alpine habitats and from young to more developed wetlands. A stroll follows ecological change as well as flowers.
The garden borders Sengokuhara Marsh, a 17-hectare wetland described as the only remaining marsh in Kanagawa Prefecture. Part of it is a national Natural Monument, making this garden a window onto a rare neighbor.
There’s more here than wetlands: about 200 Japanese wetland plants share the grounds with roughly 1,100 grassland, woodland and alpine plants, plus unusual foreign mountain plants—around 1,700 kinds altogether.
