Manyo Botanical Garden

The Manyo Botanical Garden sits next to the Kasuga Taisha shrine in Nara and takes its name from the Man'yōshū, Japan's oldest poetry anthology compiled in the 8th century with over 4,500 waka verses. Every plant in the garden corresponds to a species mentioned by name in those ancient poems — cherry trees, wisteria, and various native herbs among them — and each is labeled with the relevant verse. The result is a rare crossover between botanical garden and literary archive, set within one of Japan's most historically layered shrine landscapes.