HKETUM DANICUM. 



821 



Aw^y hi^ valuable acquisition. Next morning, the effects of tlie wine 

 being dissipated, the English gardener sought out his customer, and 

 offered his 25 guineas for one plant of the five he had sold the day 

 before. This, however, was refused by M. Petigny, who carried the 

 plants to France ; and, as each of the five had cost him about 120 

 francs, or 40 crowns {quarante ecus), this was the origin of the name 

 applied to this tree in France, of arhre aux quarante ecus, and not 

 because it was originally sold for 120 francs a plant. Almost all the 

 Ginkgo trees in France have been propagated from these five, im- 

 ported from England by M. Petigny. 



The wood of the Ginkgo is said by Ksempfer to be light, soft, and 

 weak ; but Loiseleur Deslongchamps describes it as of a yellowish 

 white, veined, with a fine close grain, and moderately hard. It is 

 easy to work, receives a fine polish, and resembles in its general ap- 

 pearance citron wood. It is, he says, much more solid and strong 

 than the ordinary white woods of Europe ; and though the tree is 

 closely allied to the Coniferse, it has nothing resinous in its nature. 

 In China and Japan the Ginkgo appears to be grown chiefly for its 

 fruit, the nuts of which, as Dr. Abel observes, are very generally 

 exposed for sale in the markets of China, though he was not able to 

 ascertain vfhether they were used as food or as medicine. In Japan, 

 according to Ksempfer, they are never omitted at entertainments, 

 entering into the composition of several dishes, after having been 

 freed from their acridity by roasting or boiling. They are reputed, 

 he says, to be useful in digestion and in dispelling flatulence. 

 Thunberg says that even the fleshy part of the fruit is eaten in Japan, 

 though insipid or bitterish ; and that, if slightly roasted, skin and all, 

 it is not unpalatable. Some of the fruits which ripened in the Botanic 

 Garden of Montpelier were tasted by M. Delille and MM. Bonafous 

 of Turin, who found their flavour very like that of newly roasted maize. 

 M. Delille says that after roasting the nuts he found nothing in the 

 kernels but a farinaceous matter, without the least appearance of oil, 

 notwithstanding what Kaempf er incidentally mentions to the contrary. 

 M. Peschier, a chemist of Geneva, discovered in the husk of the fruit 

 an acid, to which he gives the name of acide gengo'ique (see ' ' Biblio- 

 th^que Universelle de Geneve," as quoted in Ann. de la Soc. d'Hort. 

 de Paris, xv. 95). Bunge says that the Chinese plant a number 

 of young trees of the Salisburia together, in order to produce a 

 monstrous tree, by inarching them into one another ; but Delille 

 thinks that this may probably have been done in order to unite male 

 and female trees, for the sake of fertilising the fruit. In Europe, 

 hitherto, the use of the tree has chiefly been as a botanical ornament ; 

 but it is suggested by Loiseleur Deslongchamps and others that, as it' 

 grows with great rapidity in the South of France, it may be planted as 

 a timber tree, and applied to the same uses as the Ash, of which it has 

 the advantage of being more solid and having a greater specific gravity 



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