382 NEW ENGLAND TREES IN WINTER. 



GINKGO 

 Maidenhair Tree. 



Ginkgo biloba L. 

 Salisburia adiantifolia Smith. 



HABIT A tree reaching a height of 60-80 ft., with generally a single 

 erect trunk (a double trunk in tree photographed) continuous into the 

 crown with straight, slender branches, making an angle of about 45 

 degrees with the trunk and regularly parallel except those below which 

 are more or less declined, forming in mature specimens a very regular 

 symmetrical broadly ovate to pyramidal head. There are several 

 horticultural varieties including one weeping form. 



BARK Ashy gray, on younger trunks and branches smooth, becoming 

 with age seamy and longitudinally roughened. 



TWIGS Rather stout, smooth, yellowish-brown, shining, a thin 

 grayish skin separating off in narrow shreds on older twigs; rapidly- 

 grown twigs of one year's growth, comparatively rare, with scattered 

 leaf-scars; stout lateral or terminal spurs with thickly crowded leaf- 

 scars common. PITH pale yellowish, with ragged outline. 



LEAF-SCARS Alternate, 2-ranked or more than 2-ranked, semi-oval, 

 raised, upper margin generally fringed. STIPULE-SCARS absent. 

 BUNDLE-SCARS 2, often most distinct in recent leaf-scars on short 

 spurs. 



BUDS Light chestnut brown, short, conical, generally under 4 mm. 

 long, isolated lateral buds on rapidly grown shoots divergent, on short 

 spurs generally only terminal buds developed. BUD-SCALES about 5 

 visible, broader than long, thickened and dotted toward the middle with 

 small reddish transparent lumps. 



FRUIT A stone-fruit with a sweet ill-smelling flesh. The tree is 

 dioecious, there being separate male and female individual trees. On 

 account of the disagreeable odor of the fruit the male trees are more 

 frequently planted. The two sexes are said to differ in their growth 

 forms, the male tree being more narrowly pyramidal while the female 

 forms a broad head. 



COMPARISONS The Ginkgo belongs to the Gymnosperms, an order 

 of plants which are mostly cone-bearing like the Pines and Spruces. It 

 has a peculiarity with the Larch in that it is not evergreen as are 

 most of its relatives but sheds its leaves in the fall. Like the Larch, 

 too, it has numerous stubby spurs with crowded leaf-scars. It differs 

 from the Larch in that its large leaf-scars are not strongly decurrent 

 and are relatively far apart on the rapidly grown shoots and further 

 have 2 bundle-scars. 



DISTRIBUTION A native of northern China, introduced into America 

 early in the century and generally successful in the eastern states as 

 far north as eastern Massachusetts and central Michigan and along 

 the St. Lawrence River in parts of Canada. 



