The Garden Magazine, November, 1919 



147 



Japan in September 1690 and 

 resided there until November 

 1692, and during the time 

 made an overland journey 

 from Nagasaki to Tokyo. 

 He returned to Europe in 

 1694 and published a book 

 in 1712 in which he gives a 

 good figure of the Ginkgo. 



THE Ginkgo tree was first 

 brought to Europe by 

 the Dutch some time between 

 1727 and 1737, and planted 

 in the Botanic Garden at 

 Utrecht. It came to England 

 between 1752 and 1754 pre- 

 sumably by seeds brought 

 direct from Japan. An Eng- 

 lishman named Gordon in 

 1 77 1 sent a plant of it to 

 the great Linnaeus who 

 adopted Kaempfer's name for 

 the generic title of the tree, 

 calling it Ginkgo biloba. In 

 1796 an English botanist, one 

 Smith, renamed it Salisburia 

 adiantifolia on the grounds 

 that Linnaeus' name was 

 "equally uncouth and bar- 

 barous". This act of pedan- 

 try was very properly ob- 

 jected to at the time, and later Smith's name was abandoned 

 for the older and legitimate one given by Linnaeus. 



The first tree to flower in Europe was a male in Kew Gar- 

 dens in 1795. The famous Jacquin planted a tree in Vienna 

 about 1 768, and this when it flowered proved to be a male also. 

 Of its first introduction to France an interesting story is 

 related by M. Andre Thouin; "In 1780 a Parisian 

 amateur named Petigny voyaged to London in order 

 to see the principal gardens there. Among those he 

 visited was that of a nurseryman who possessed five young 

 Ginkgo plants all in one pot and raised from seeds 

 received from Japan. The nurseryman valued them highly 

 but after abundant hospitality, in which wine was not 

 omitted, he parted with them for 25 guineas. Next morning 

 he sought out M. Petigny and tried to buy back the plants 

 finally offering for a single plant the 25 guineas received 

 for the five. The Frenchman refused and carried the plants 

 to France, where the tree was christened " Arbre aux quarante 

 ecus!" 



Most of the older trees in France are said to have been 

 derived from the above five but Sir Joseph Banks, in 

 1788, gave to Broussonet, who was then in London, 

 a Ginkgo plant and he sent it to Professor Gonan of Mont- 

 pellier Botanic Gardens where it was planted. 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, where he 

 cultivated many rare trees. This tree is historical. It 

 proved to be a female, the discovery being made by Auguste 



Pyramus DeCandoIlein 1814. 

 Scions from this tree were 

 distributed over Europe by 

 its discoverer and grafted on 

 the male trees including those 

 at Vienna and Montpellier. 

 In fact all the fruiting trees 

 in Europe up to 1882, are 

 believed to have originated 

 by grafting from the tree 

 near Geneva. As a result 

 the tree at Montpellier pro- 

 duced perfect fruit for the 

 first time in Europe in 1835. 



npHi 



1 M 



THE GINKGO AVENUE IN WASHINGTON, D. 

 Which crosses the Mall and leads to the original 

 building of the Department of Agriculture 



IE introduction of the 

 Maidenhair Tree to 

 America is said to be due to 

 William Hamilton who ob- 

 tained it from England in 

 1784 and planted it in his 

 garden at Woodlawn near 

 Philadelphia, where it grows 

 to-day though the garden it- 

 self has become a cemetery. 

 In the first years of the 19th 

 century a Ginkgo was planted 

 by Dr. Hosack at Hyde Park 

 on the banks of the Hudson 

 River. On the north side of 

 the Boston Common grows a 

 historic Ginkgo which is pos- 

 sibly older than the tree at Woodlawn and probably came di- 

 rect from China. 1 1 is said to have been a tree of "full size when 

 Mr. Gardiner Greene purchased the garden in 1 798." The site 

 of the garden is now occupied by the Court House in Pemberton 

 Square. After Mr. Greene's death in 1832, the grounds were 

 sold and the tree moved to its present position in 1838. The 

 city paid a portion of the cost and each of Mr. Greene's 

 children contributed one hundred dollars. The tree when 

 moved was 40 feet tall and 4 feet in girth of trunk. Those 

 were times of great financial stringency and there was some 

 opposition to the spending of public money on moving a tree. 

 As far as authentic records go the oldest Ginkgo trees in 

 this country are the two in Woodlawn Cemetery, Philadel- 

 phia, planted by William Hamilton in 1784. The largest, 

 a male, measures 7 feet 7 inches in girth of trunk, the other is 

 female and measures 6 feet 6 inches in girth. Both are fully 

 75 feet tall and in vigorous health. Professor Harshberger, 

 to whom 1 am indebted for the above measurements, thinks 

 the Ginkgo in the old Bartram garden in West Philadelphia. 

 Pa., is the older and the first planted in America, basing his 

 opinion on the facts that this garden is older than that founded 

 by Hamilton and that the tree is the larger, being 9 feet 3 

 inches in girth. Perhaps the best known Maidenhair Trees in 

 America are those forming the avenue in the Department of 

 Agriculture grounds, Washington, D. C. These were 

 planted about 1870 or 1871. There are some ninety trees 

 in the avenue and on the curves of the drive which leads into 

 the avenue. The trees were all planted at the same time but 

 vary greatly in size. The tallest tree is about 52 feet and a 



