Japan
17 images Created 19 Oct 2009
Images of rural Japan. The bamboo/cedar forests of green Japan.
The "Images from Japan" galleries in both our Archive and our Store explores the Bamboo Forest near Narita in the Chiba prefecture. Narita is a small town situated roughly 80km East of Tokyo, and is the location of the Narita International Airport.
The area around Narita is a mixture of rural and urban areas with woodlands covering the low hills and rice paddies in the low lying ground. Each of these paddies is small and irrigated by ancient canals. The hills are covered with Japanese cedar, Cryptomeria Japonica. This conifer, also known as sugi, is commonly cultivated as an ornamental in the southeastern US and other regions having relatively mild winters. It is a rapid-growing tree that can exceed 60 feet in height and is used for lumber in Japan. Intermixed with the sugi are thick stands of bamboo. Bamboos are the fastest growing woody plants in the world. They spread through a unique rhizome-dependent system, but arehighly dependent on local soil and climate conditions. They are of economic and high cultural significance throughout East and South East Asia where they are used extensively in gardens, as a building material, and as a food source.
The "Images from Japan" galleries in both our Archive and our Store explores the Bamboo Forest near Narita in the Chiba prefecture. Narita is a small town situated roughly 80km East of Tokyo, and is the location of the Narita International Airport.
The area around Narita is a mixture of rural and urban areas with woodlands covering the low hills and rice paddies in the low lying ground. Each of these paddies is small and irrigated by ancient canals. The hills are covered with Japanese cedar, Cryptomeria Japonica. This conifer, also known as sugi, is commonly cultivated as an ornamental in the southeastern US and other regions having relatively mild winters. It is a rapid-growing tree that can exceed 60 feet in height and is used for lumber in Japan. Intermixed with the sugi are thick stands of bamboo. Bamboos are the fastest growing woody plants in the world. They spread through a unique rhizome-dependent system, but arehighly dependent on local soil and climate conditions. They are of economic and high cultural significance throughout East and South East Asia where they are used extensively in gardens, as a building material, and as a food source.
