Kogen-ji publishes a table of its own seasons, and it is more careful than most. The leaves begin to turn between the middle and the end of October, it says, and by the first third of November the whole hillside is red. There is no closing date. The temple simply stops describing.

The maples here are tenmoku-kaede, and they are not native. The temple's founder, the Zen master Enkei Soyu, is said to have brought them back from Mount Tianmu in Hangzhou, where he trained. The characteristics are small leaves and branches that droop across the whole tree, which gives the grounds a lower, denser canopy than an ordinary maple planting. The same mountain gives its name to tenmoku tea bowls, for the same reason: it is where they were used.

The temple is asked every year which day will be best, and its published answer is worth repeating. The timing changes from year to year. Some years are early and some are late. If it is early you get the colour of an early autumn, and if it is late you get the colour of a late one — either is the thing itself rather than a near miss.

Kogen-ji stands at Hikura in the Aokaki district of Tamba, in the hills of northern Hyogo. The same page notes that the new growth in April and May is worth the trip too, which is the kind of remark a temple makes and a guidebook does not.