The Sacred Tree of Mount Ali

The Sacred Tree of Mount Ali is a huge Taiwanese cypress found by a Japanese technician in 1906. Standing 178 feet high with a circular length of 75 feet, its estimated age is over 3,000 years. Struck by lightening in 1953 and 1956, the internal part of its trunk became carbonized, and boughs on the upper half of it withered completely. Since then the Sacred Tree had been decaying day after day. To avoid accidents that might happen due to the sudden collapse of the tree, Chia-I Forest Administration Office put the tree to the ground in 1998, ending the long history of the symbolic figure of Mount Ali. In the past, in order to export the precious wood to foreign countries like Japan, people chopped down Taiwanese cypress and constructed forest railroads for transportation. Today, environment protection is an important issue and deforestation is completely prohibited. Sight-seeing and tours of high-mountain railroads have become the new attractions of Mount Ali.

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阿里山神木

阿里山神木係於1906年，由日本伐木技師發現的紅檜巨木，推測樹齡達三千年，樹高55公尺，胸圍23公尺。於1953及1956年遭受兩次雷擊，致使樹幹內部中空炭化，上半身枝椏全枯，後來逐漸朽萎；嘉義林管處為了預防神木突然倒塌造成意外，在1998年6月29日以人工進行放倒處理，使這棵曾經代表阿里山的精神象徵走入歷史。

當年為了經濟利益砍伐林木，並興建森林鐵路運輸紅檜，外銷到以日本為主的世界各地；如今在維護自然生態的前題下，台灣已全面禁止森林伐木，森林遊樂與高山鐵道之旅，成為阿里山觀光的新賣點，這棵聳立參天的神木也曾見証了台灣價值觀的蛻變。