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Ogasawara NP, Tokyo
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The Environment Ministry records only 3 naturally growing Hoshitsururan orchids near Mount Chibusa. This orchid grows nowhere else outside Hahajima; propagated plants have also been replanted, with more than 60 planted individuals now growing across the island.
The Mount Chibusa loop doubles as a wartime history walk: a Tokyo Metropolitan Government guide identifies a bomb crater from the Pacific War beside one section, and trenches dug during the war along another.
Look into the branches: the endemic Otome katatsumaimai around Chibusa is a tree-climbing snail. Once confused with a similar snail near Sekimon, it was recognized as a different species after anatomical and DNA analyses.
A land snail found only on Hahajima has a greatly reduced shell, and rangers have spotted it along Chibusa’s trail. The Environment Ministry says the reduction is thought to be linked to humid conditions and few natural enemies.
Wadan-no-ki grows 4–5 m tall, despite belonging to the daisy family—a surprising woody form thought to have evolved from an herb. Endemic to the Hahajima Islands, it helps shape the cloud-forest scrub on Chibusa’s ridge.
Above about 400 m, Chibusa enters a cloud belt. In 2010, the Japan Bryological Society recognized the forest from trailhead to summit as a “Valuable Moss Forest,” home to endemic mosses and rare hornworts.
The Bonin white-eye, or Meguro, has a yellow belly and a distinctive black triangular marking around its eyes. It lives on only 3 islands in the Hahajima group, and the public trail to Chibusa’s summit is a place to spot it.
Pale-pink, five-petaled Hahajima-no-botan grows in Chibusa’s summit mist forest. A local nature guide recalls residents clearing the jungle-choked mountain path when the islands returned to Japan, helping protect the flower’s habitat.
A 2024 genome study found Hahajima-no-botan unusually vulnerable genetically—even more so than Chichijima’s Munin-no-botan, which has already received intensive conservation. Chibusa’s mist forest is home to the Hahajima flower.
