264 
“Ts it fertilised by the ape grains brought by the wind, or 
is it parthenogenetic I do not know? The case should be 
investigated. We may try to tie the problem.” 
We hope that Professor Chodat will undertake this investiga- 
tion for despite, or perhaps because of, its antiquity Ginkgo appears 
still to possess morphological problems that would well repay 
scientific research. It was only in 1895 and 1896 that Professor 
S. Hirase carried out in Tokyo* the experiments which resulted 
in the discovery that motile male sperms take part in the 
fecundation of Ginkgo, this genus therefore like the Cycads (which 
also possess motile male sperms) is to some extent intermediate 
between other flowering plants and ferns. The reason for the 
belated maturation of the embryo in the seed is another interesting 
problem, the embryo sometimes does not complete its development 
until after the fall of the seed. Research work in Britain would 
be difficult owing to the scarcity of female flowers but there are 
plenty of female trees on the Continent that flower and fruit 
every year, and where these trees exist investigations might 
be made 
So far as is known the fruits matured by the Kew tree in 
1919 were the first to be ripened in Britain and there have been 
no more until the present year. There are now two large clusters, 
as shown by the accompanying photograph. 
Returning to the Utrecht tree there is an interesting problem 
ee ae: » in addition to the fruiting branch, as it may very 
well be t Ginkgo introduced into Europe. The species 
was fst Ads known to Western botanists by Dr. Engelbert 
Kaempfer, a surgeon in the employ of the Dutch East India 
Company, who in the course of business visited Japan in 1692. 
On his return to Holland he wrote several books on botany and 
travel and in 1712 published his Amoenitatum Ezoticarum, on 
p. 811 of which he gave a description of Ginkgo with a full plate 
drawing of shoot, leaves and fruit. Some years later, apparently 
between 1727 and 1737 a tree was procured and planted in the 
Botanic Garden, Utrecht. This marked its introduction into 
Europe during the present era.t As the tree lives to a great 
age and succeeds under conditions that would be fatal to many 
species there is eveyy probability that the original tree is still 
iving. Most of the earlier trees raised both in Britain and on 
the Continent appear to have been males. Wilson{ says that 
“in 1790 an English amateur named Blake, sent a Ginkgo plant 
to M. Gaussen de Chapeau-rouge who had a garden at Bourdigny, 
a village two leagues from Geneva, Switzerland. This tree is 
historical. It proved to be a female, the discovery being made 
were distributed over Europe by its discoverer and grafted on 
ee Journ. Coll. of Science, Japan, vol. viii, pt. 2, 1895 & vol. xii, pt. 2, 
For an account of Ginkgo in the Jurassic and Tertiary ages s 
Seward, F.R.S., and Miss J. Gowan, in Ann. of Bot. xiv, pp. 109-154 ioe: 
t loc. cit., p. 56 (1920). 
