The maple in the garden of Villa 62 is said to be more than 500 years old. A travel writer reported that in 2021, and the guesthouse tells its guests the same now. In 2025 Tide News, Zhejiang’s provincial news service, called it a hundred year tree. Unless they mean different trees, both can’t be right, and nobody has published a measurement that settles it.
Moganshan (莫干山) is a mountain and former hill station in Deqing County (德清县), Huzhou (湖州), Zhejiang, about 60 km north of Hangzhou and 200 to 240 km from Shanghai. Its old stone summer houses, the Moganshan villas, go by numbers more often than names. None of this is Moganshan Road in Shanghai, the M50 art district.
Four accounts of one tree
| Who | When | What they say | Tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| A named travel writer on Tencent News | 5 December 2021 | A maple “more than 500 years old” in Villa 62, tea tables under it | 3 |
| The scenic area, via Deqing News | 13 November 2024 | More than 10,000 red maples, more than 100 over a century, the oldest over 500. No tree named | 2 |
| Tide News | 18 November 2025 | A “hundred year” maple in front of Villa 62; the “king of maples” at No. 274 | 2 |
| The guesthouse in Villa 62 | its listing, read 19 October 2026 | Two big maples, over 500 “according to the owner” | 4 |
Tier 2 is a dated news report, 3 a named writer’s account, 4 a business describing itself.
A maple over 500 years old in Villa 62, tea seats under it, and “the so called little Kyoto” placed there, a named travel writer on Tencent News (腾讯新闻), 5 December 2021, tier 3. https://news.qq.com/rain/a/20211205A08VZZ00
More than 10,000 red maples, more than 100 over a century, the oldest over 500, Moganshan Management Bureau (莫干山管理局), quoted by Deqing News (德清新闻网), 13 November 2024, tier 2. https://dqnews.zjol.com.cn/dqnews/system/2024/11/13/034801734.shtml
A hundred year maple (百年红枫) in front of Villa 62 and the “king of maples” (枫树王) at No. 274, Tide News (潮新闻), relayed by China News Service (中新网), 18 November 2025, tier 2. https://www.chinanews.com.cn/sh/2025/11-18/9636841.shtml
Two maples the owner puts at more than 500 years (据主人透露树龄已经500多岁), in a villa built in the 1930s, opened as a guesthouse in 2014, the guesthouse’s own description on the booking site ezTravel (易遊網), read 19 October 2026, tier 4, as the property says. https://hotel.eztravel.com.tw/detail-deqing-1367-4365265/wangshan-villa/
Both 500 year accounts come from the garden itself: a writer who sat in it, and the people who run it. The scenic area’s oldest maple is over 500, but it has never said where it stands. The one news report to describe the Villa 62 tree in its own words calls it a hundred, and gives the grander title to a tree at No. 274. Even that tree was billed, in the same report, as “a century of maple charm” (百年枫韵). Not five.
The guesthouse speaks of two trees, the writer and Tide News of one. The record doesn’t say which one the photographs show.
What 500 years would mean on paper
In Zhejiang a tree isn’t ancient because someone says so. The province’s rules on ancient and famous trees (古树名木), in force since 1 October 2017, count a tree as ancient (古树) only once it has been assessed at 100 years or more, and then grade it.
| Grade | Age | Confirmed by | Protected zone beyond the crown |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 500 years or more | the province, after the county assesses it | at least 5 m |
| 2 | 300 to 499 years | the city, after the county assesses it | at least 3 m |
| 3 | 100 to 299 years | the county | at least 2 m |
Ancient tree grades and protected zones, Zhejiang Provincial People’s Government (浙江省人民政府), decree 356, 7 July 2017, on the central government portal (中国政府网), tier 1. https://www.gov.cn/zhengce/2021-12/27/content_5719221.htm
So “more than 500” is not a loose compliment. It is the line for the top grade. A tree above it should have a provincial confirmation and a published catalogue entry, with a protection sign beside it.
We found no published catalogue entry for any Moganshan maple, though the Zhejiang forestry bureau’s page on the scenic area would not load when we tried. Either way, the 500 years has not been shown to readers in a form they can check.
A measured age still has a margin. In January 2024 Liu Lili (刘丽莉), a deputy head of ecology at the National Forestry and Grassland Administration (国家林业和草原局), listed the methods in use, from asking people and reading documents to ring counts, cores and carbon 14. All of them leave error, she said. The target for a grade 1 tree was an error under 25 percent.
Tree age methods, their error, and targets of under 25, 20 and 15 percent for grades 1 to 3, National Forestry and Grassland Administration (国家林业和草原局), from Beijing News (新京报), 5 March 2024, tier 1. https://www.forestry.gov.cn/c/www/zhzs/548184.jhtml
A tree put at 500 and measured to that target could be anything from about 375 to 625. “The owner says” is on that list too. It counts as an interview.
Villa 62 among the Moganshan villas
The house is barely easier to date than the tree. The guesthouse says it was built in the 1930s; we found no dated source we could check that gives a year. That would put it in the second wave of building, the Chinese boom of 1928 to 1949 that the stone villas page sets out.
It is on a national list. In 2006 the State Council named the Moganshan villa group (莫干山别墅群) among 1,080 new national key protected sites, and China News Service, captioning the Villa 62 maples in 2024, counted the house part of it.
The Moganshan villa group, No. 949 of 1,080 in the sixth batch, State Council (国务院), notice of 25 May 2006, on the Ministry of Culture and Tourism site (文化和旅游部), tier 1. https://zwgk.mct.gov.cn/zfxxgkml/qt/202012/t20201206_918486.html
Villa 62 captioned as part of the protected villa group, China News Service (中国新闻网), 13 November 2024, tier 2. https://www.chinanews.com.cn/tp/2024/11-13/10318612.shtml
Set the two ages against the house. A tree that was a hundred in 2025 dates from about the 1920s, close to when the villa went up, and could have been planted with the garden. A tree of 500 stood for four centuries before the hill station existed. Either is possible, and neither is on record.
The house trades now as Maple and Azalea Valley (枫鹃谷), the name the scenic area also gives the viewing point. By its own account it serves afternoon tea in the garden.
The little Kyoto shot
The 2021 writer, standing under the tree, wrote that this garden was probably what people meant when they called autumn Moganshan a “little Kyoto” (小京都). For 2025 the scenic area named 62 Fengjuan Valley among its chosen viewing points, and ran a maple shuttle line past it. Tide News found visitors in Republican era dress, and wedding couples, photographing among the old houses.
The viewing point, the shuttle line and the period dress, Tide News (潮新闻), via China News Service (中新网), 18 November 2025, tier 2. https://www.chinanews.com.cn/sh/2025/11-18/9636841.shtml
The nickname oversells it. Most of the mountain is bamboo and stays green, and the red comes in pockets. Close up, one pocket fills a phone screen, and that is the shot.
Timing matters more than the tree’s age. The maples turn late, and no 2026 festival date had been announced by 19 October 2026. Moganshan red leaves has every date on record, and the other old trees.
Seeing the tree
Villa 62 is not in Wuling village (武陵村), where Songyue Lodge stands. It is on the Sword Pond (剑池) side of the mountain: the guesthouse places itself by the Huating car park, five minutes above the pond. The 2025 maple walk that reaches it, route 4 from Yinshan Street (荫山街), passes Huating on its way to Nos. 62 and 92. Nobody from this site has walked it. In 2025 the last bus down left Yinshan Street at about 17:00.
Route 4 via Huating to Nos. 62 and 92, and about 17:00 for the last bus down, a Zhejiang tourism promotion account (诗画浙江游浙里) on Tencent News (腾讯新闻), 28 November 2025, tier 4, as announced. https://view.inews.qq.com/a/20251128A06OQU00
The shuttle system has the timetable, and the hill station walking tour the lanes around it.
The garden belongs to a working guesthouse, and nothing published says whether passers by may go in. Look from the lane unless the gate is open, or book a room. Then look for a protection sign by either trunk. One would mean the tree has been through the assessment the rules describe. None has been reported.
Last checked 20 October 2026 by Cyril Drouin. Prices, timetables and entry rules on this mountain move without notice, so confirm anything you are booking around.
Photographs on this site are representative illustrations, not documentary images of the specific building, property or service described.
