THE STORY OF THE GINKGO 



veins and no cross veinlets; the apex is irregularly 

 crenate or cut and is usually cleft, more or less deeply, 

 into two or more lobes. In bud the leaves are 

 folded together not rolled up crozier-like as in the 

 Ferns, they are scattered on the long free-shoots and 

 crowded at the apex of the short, spur-like branches. 

 In size they vary from 2 to 3 inches in width on the 

 spurs, but on the free-shoots, and especially those 

 which freely develop from the base of the trunks of 

 old trees, they are sometimes from 6 to 8 inches 

 broad, and are bright, grass-green when young, and 

 dull, rich green at maturity. They are leathery in 

 texture, and in the autumn assume an unvarying 

 tint of clear yellow before they fall. In China the 

 leaves are sometimes placed in books as a preserva- 

 tive against insects. In the Orient the lovely 

 yellow autumn foliage renders the trees most con- 

 spicuous, and after the fall of the leaf they are easily 

 recognized by their rather stiff and decidedly stately 

 appearance. 



The trees bear either male or female flowers but 

 the two sexes are never found on one and the same 

 individual unless deliberately grafted together. In 

 some books it is claimed that the "male trees are 

 pyramidal and upright in habit, the ascending 

 branches of free and vigorous growth"; that the 

 "female trees are more compact in habit, more 



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