146 



The Garden Magazine, November, 1919 



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 richly 

 branched below and the branches sometimes becoming even 

 pendent." Personally 1 have not found it possible to deter- 

 mine the sex of the tree by its habit, and the Japanese, 

 Koreans, and Chinese whom I have interrogated on this 

 point assert that it is utterly impossible to do so. 



The flowers are developed from among the leaves at the 

 apex of the spur-like shoots, and appear at the end of April 

 or beginning of May; the female is very like that of some 

 Oaks (Ouercus glauca, a Japanese species for example). 

 The pollen is scattered by the wind and settles on the tip 

 of the female flower, after which the cup grows up and en- 

 closes the "globose body." Fecundation takes place early 

 in September, being preceded by many changes within the 

 growing nut-like body which culminate in the development 

 of a motile male sperm from the pollen and an egg cell in the 

 female flower. The development of the embryo takes place 

 early in November when the seed is full grown, yellow in 

 color, and readv to fall to the ground. Often, indeed, the 



development does not take place until the seed is actuallv 

 fallen to the ground. Two or three embryos are sometimes 

 developed in one seed. The seeds germinate in the spring 

 following and the manner is very like that of the Oak. 



The plum-like fruit is not a true fruit at all but is a naked 

 seed. It is round, bright orange-yellow, about an inch in 

 diameter and consists of a thin outer fleshy layer, like a 

 plum, covering an oval-pointed "nut" from one half to three 

 quarters of an inch long, On or soon after falling to the 

 ground the fleshy covering splits and emits a most offensive — 

 nay abominable! — odor. If the ripe seeds are handled or 

 touch one's clothing the odor is not eradicated for a day or 

 more. This penetrating offensive smell is due to a peculiar 

 crystallizable fatty acid akin to butric acid, first extracted 

 about 1839 and named Ginkgoic acid. 



The nuts denuded of their offensive pulp and washed, are 

 pure white and are on sale in most of the market towns in 

 China and Japan, and in a less degree in those of Manchuria 

 and Korea, and after roasting are eaten at banquets, weddings 

 and convivial gatherings generally, being supposed to pro- 

 mote digestion and to diminish the effects of wine. 



We of the West owe our first knowledge of the Ginkgo 

 tree to Engelbert Kaempfer who, as a surgeon in the 

 service of the old Dutch East India Company, visited 



PROBABLY THE OLDEST G1NGKO IN AMERICA— 

 Planted in 1784 by William Hamilton at "Woodlands," near 

 Philadelphia, the estate later becoming a burial ground 



—THOUGH POSSIBLY THIS HAS THE HONOR! 



Since it was pronounced "full size" in 1798. It was trans- 

 planted to its present place on Boston Common in i8">,8 



