CHAP. CXI I. 



TAXA CF.;E. 



1992 



seen in p. 72. ; and it is above 60 ft. high : but by far the handsomest tree which 

 we know of is that figured in our last Volume, from the Mile End Nursery; 

 which, remeasured in July, 1837, was found to be exactly 60 ft. high. 



Geography and History. The salisburia, or ginkgo tree, is generally con- 

 sidered by botanists to be a native of the Island of Niphon, and other parts 

 of Japan, and also of China; but M. Siebold, 

 who resided seven years in Japan, and is 

 publishing the flora of that country, states 

 that the inhabitants of Japan consider the 

 tree as not truly indigenous to their coun- 

 try, but to have been brought to them from 

 China, though at a very remote period ; 

 and Bunge, who accompanied the wiission 

 from Russia to Pekin, states that he saw 

 near a pagoda, an immense ginkgo tree, 

 with a trunk nearly 40 ft. in circumference, 

 of prodigious height, and still in the vigour 

 of vegetation. (Bull, de la Sac. d'Ag. du Depart, de rHerault, 1833.) It was 

 first discovered by Kaempfer in Japan, in 1690; and an account of it was pub- 

 lished by that author, in his Amcenttatcs JExoticfS, in 1 7 1 2. It is uncertain when 

 this tree was introduced into Europe. If the estimate made by Professor Kops 

 of Utrecht, as to the age of the salisburia growing in the Botanic Garden there, 

 be at all near the truth, it must have been first introduced into Holland be- 

 tween 1727 and 1737; and, from the connexion of the Dutch with Japan at that 

 time, we think this highly probable. It is certain that it was not introduced into 

 England till 1754, or a year or two previous; because Ellis, writing to Lin- 

 naeus in that year, mentions that Gordon had plants of it. Gordon sent a 

 plant of it to Linnaeus in 1771 ; who, in his Mantissa, published in that year, 

 noticed it, for the first time, under the name of Gin/ego bfloba ; which was 

 altered by Smith, in 1796, to Salisburia odiantifolia. This alteration, stated 

 by Smith to be made on account of the generic name being " equally uncouth 

 and barbarous," was very properly objected to at the time, and has since been 

 protested against by M. De Candolle, on the principle of checking the intro- 

 duction of a multiplicity of names.. We have, however, adopted the name of 



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