The western part of Tokyo, including the Komaba Campus, is situated on the Musashino Terrace. This area was once covered in a vast forest populated by many species of trees. Most of this forest no longer exists within Tokyo’s 23 Special Wards, but relatively large trees still remain around the Komaba Campus, evoking even ever so slightly a sense of what the area once looked like. The climate in this area is ideal for a laurel forest, with beech trees, the Machilus thunbergii variety of bay tree and other such hardwoods and evergreens all seen within the Campus.
A number of small valleys run through Komaba and the surrounding area, which was also once abundant with spring water. Komaba Campus sits atop one such valley that had been filled in, and traces of this past can still be seen in the spring located south of Athletic Field 2. Numerous varieties of valley-preferring trees also dot the area, including types of zelkovas, hornbeams and maples. Among these trees are varieties rarely seen within the 23 Special Wards, such as the Vine Leaf Maple.
