The Hall of Great Perfection. Wang Hui [Photo/ China Daily]

Yet this massive monument to wisdom and scholarship in Qufu, Shandong province -sprawled out over 16,000 square meters and second in terms of scale only to the Forbidden City in Beijing whose model it emulates - moves me not so much because of what it is, but rather what it grows.

Tall coniferous trees line up on both sides of the approach road to the fortress-like entrance, leading to Linxing Gate. Long and thin stems of weeping willows, glittering under the mid-day sun like tinsel, bend over the moat around the wall to touch the rippling waters beneath.

Inside, it is the cypresses lording it over. Their serrated trunks spread out and twist in impossible formations, growing bulbous knobs in odd places. Sometimes, the trees slant dangerously, kowtowing to the forces of gravity.

The most legendary among the trees in this compound, of course, does not exist any more. But a red-pillared, yellow-tiled pavilion marks the spot where it once stood.

The apricot, under whose shady boughs the great seer would discuss and interpret some of the ancient classical Chinese texts - The Book of History, The Book of Rites, The Book of Odes, The Book of Music and The Book of Changes - with some of his disciples is memorialized with due reverence. This was after Confucius had returned to the State of Lu after a long-drawn, hazardous journey across China but did not wish to be re-instated as a high-ranking official, preferring a quieter and more contemplative life instead.

In Confucius' turf, the mythology around trees seems to build and prosper even independently of the great philosopher, one of whose themes was about man's communion with nature. For instance, there's a cypress under which an elderly Emperor Qianlong (1711-1799) of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) - who visited the temple eight times as his daughter had married into the Kong family - was supposed to have rested. Legend has it that the bark of the tree crinkled and grew warts to resemble dragon hide, resonating with and reinforcing its imperial associations.