I spent a wonderful week in Martha’s Vineyard in late July. We were staying with a good friend who has a family place in Aquinnah on the western end of the island, but I knew I wanted to visit Edgartown, on the other side of the Vineyard. I love Edgartown for lots of reasons - it’s a quintessential New England whaling town full of 1820s white clapboard homes with green shutters, and 18th century Congregationalist churches. But I also knew that I wanted to make a pilgrimage to the oldest and largest Japanese pagoda tree (Styphnolobium japonicum) in the country! The tree was brought to the the United States from China as a seedling in 1837 by whaling captain Thomas Milton, to grace his new home then being built in Edgardtown, and has been growing on the island ever since.

Check out photos below - and then be sure to read my blog post about my visit to the the Arnold Arboretum next!

184 years after being planted by a whaling captain just back from China, America’s largest Japanese pagoda tree

A tree-hugger shot of me just for scale :)