are straw belts, also known as waramaki, wrapped around trees during winter in Japan to protect them against pests. They are wrapped around pine trees, a custom that dates back to the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

Japan Times ''The Japan Times'' is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper. It is published by , a subsidiary of News2u Holdings, Inc.. It is headquartered in the in Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo. History ''The Japan Times'' was launched by ...

br>Straw belts October 16, 2012
Retrieved March 19, 2015

History

During the Edo period a gardener developed komomaki as a method of attracting a pest known as the "pine moth" in English. Called ''matsugahera'' in Japanese, and ''

Dendrolimus spectabilis ''Dendrolimus spectabilis'', the pine moth or ''matsugahera'' in Japan, is a moth in the family Lasiocampidae. Distribution It is found in Japan. Host plants and damage The Japanese straw mats named ''komomaki are straw belts, also known as w ...

'' scientifically, the moths eat pine needles which can weaken the tree. The komomaki are placed as a warm place for the caterpillars to spend the winter, and they are burned just before spring, before the caterpillars emerge from hibernation. The ashes are used as fertiliser.

Effectiveness

In recent times it has become known that in reality the komomaki catch more insects that are beneficial for the pine trees, and that the number of pine moths caught was relatively low. A study by Chikako Niiho and others from the

Himeji Institute of Technology The is a public university in Japan. Its headquarters is in Chuo-ku, Kobe City. History The University of Hyogo (UH) was established in April 2004 by integrating three universities which were run by Hyogo Prefecture government: , and th ...

on the komomaki at

Himeji castle is a hilltop Japanese castle complex situated in the city of Himeji which is located in the Hyōgo Prefecture of Japan. The castle is regarded as the finest surviving example of prototypical Japanese castle architecture, comprising a network of ...

discovered that in 2005 only six of the 1,577 insects caught that year (0.3%) were pine moths.

Currently

The

Tokyo Imperial Palace The is the main residence of the Emperor of Japan. It is a large park-like area located in the Chiyoda district of the Chiyoda ward of Tokyo and contains several buildings including the where the Emperor has his living quarters, the where va ...

and the

Kyoto Imperial Palace The is the former palace of the Emperor of Japan. Since the Meiji Restoration in 1869, the Emperors have resided at the Tokyo Imperial Palace, while the preservation of the Kyoto Imperial Palace was ordered in 1877. Today, the grounds are open t ...

no longer use komomaki, but they can be seen in nine traditional gardens in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

as a ''fūbutsushi'', or seasonal marker. They can also be seen on the pine trees in the

KEK , known as KEK, is a Japanese organization whose purpose is to operate the largest particle physics laboratory in Japan, situated in Tsukuba, Ibaraki prefecture. It was established in 1997. The term "KEK" is also used to refer to the laboratory ...

research organisation in Tsukuba, Ibaraki prefecture. Symmetry magazin
Komomaki April 2005
Retrieved March 19, 2015

References

{{reflist Japanese culture Straw objects