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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



larger, some of tliem measuring 10 inches in circumference, and 

 divided into two, three, or five lobes — the principal lobes being again 

 subdivided, undulated, and irregularly laciniated, or dentated on tlie 

 edges ; a very fine variety of French origin. 



The Salisburia, or Ginkgo tree, is generally considered by bota- 

 nists to be a native of the Island of Nippon and other parts of Japan, 

 and also of China ; but M. Siebold, who resided seven years in Japan, 

 and published a flora of that country, states that the inhabitants 

 of Japan consider the tree as not truly indigenous to their country, 

 but to have been brought to them from China, though at a very 

 remote period ; and Bunge, who accompanied the mission from 

 Russia to Pekin, states that he saw near a pagoda an immense Ginkgo 

 tree, with a trunk nearly 40 feet in circumference, of prodigious 

 height and still in the vigour of vegetation (Bull, de la Soc. d'Ag. 

 du Depart, de I'Herault, 1833). It was first discovered by Ksempfer in 

 Japan in 1690, and an account of it was published by that author 

 in his " Amoenitates Exoticas " in 1712. 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 intro- 

 duced into Holland between 1727 and 1737, and, from the connection 

 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 tvs^o previous, because Ellis, writing to Linnseus in that year, 

 mentions that Gordon had plants of it. Gordon sent a plant of it to 

 Linnseus in 1771, who, in his " Mantissa," published in that year, 

 noticed it, for the first time, under the name of Giiikgo hiloha, which 

 was altered by Smith in 1796 to Salisburia adiantifolia. This altera- 

 tion, 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 CandoUe, 

 on the principle of checking the introduction of a multiplicity of 

 names. 



The manner in which this tree was introduced into the gardens of 

 Paris is curious, and was thus related by M. Andre Thouin, when 

 delivering his annual Cours d' Agriculture Pratique in the Jardin des 

 Plantes : In 1780 a Parisian amateur named Petigny made a 

 voyage to London in order to see the principal gardens, and among 

 the number of those he visited was that of a nurseryman who 

 possessed five young plants of Ginkgo biloba, which was still rare 

 in England, and which the gardener pretended that he then alone 

 possessed. These five plants were raised from nuts that he had 

 received from Japan, and he set a high price on them. However, 

 after an abundant dejeuner, and plenty of wine, he sold to M. Pe'tigny 

 these young trees of Ginkgo, all growing in the same pot, for 25 guineas, 

 which the Parisian amateur paid immediately, and lost no time in taking 



