150 
NATURE NOTES 
beauty of its foliage and flowers have been enthusiastically 
praised, it cannot be at all considered as worth planting with a 
view to profit. An extraordinary sensation was excited in Britain 
respecting this tree by Cobbett in 1823, he being then of opinion 
that nothing in the timber-way could be so great a benefit to 
this country as the general cultivation of this tree. He, accord- 
ingly, lauded it as far superior to the oak ; started business as a 
nurseryman, and supplied the tree as a new one, which, though 
introduced long before, had been forgotten in England. It was 
then, no doubt, that Robinias were planted in the gardens along 
the river-side at Richmond, where they still exist, and produce 
their flowers in abundance. Its singularly light and graceful 
foliage has a very charming appearance. Seven pairs of pretty 
little ovate leaflets run pinnately along the axis of the leaf and 
are terminated by a single leaflet, all of a bright golden green. 
The flowers are white, and of charming fragrance, they do not 
appear till the end of May, and are then borne upon the twigs 
in pendulous racemes, much as are those of the laburnum. 
From Japan come many of our choicest flowers, and there- 
from, too, come some of the trees that we have to refer to, such 
as that called in Japan the Gingko, which is a large conical 
deciduous tree, and was introduced into this country in or about 
1754. It is a unisexual plant, and bears the staminate and 
pistillate flowers on distinct plants. With us it often, though 
improperly, bears the name of Salisburia, which it took in 
honour of R. A. Salisbury, a distinguished botanist. Sir M. E. 
Grant Duff, in his very interesting “ Notes from a Diary” (vol. 
ii. , p. 51) calls it “ the Jingo - tree of the Chinese,” and adds that 
the name led to many jokes at the period (1878). The only known 
species is called S. adiantifolia , or maiden-hair tree, since it 
bears leaves like those of the maiden-hair fern ( Adiantum ), that 
turn yellowish-green w r hen they fall off. The correct botanical 
name of this tree is Ginkgo biloba. The male catkins which 
appear with the leaves in May, on old spurs, are sessile and 
yellowish in colour ; and are the only ones, it is believed, as yet 
produced in England. In this characteristic it somewhat 
resembles the Japanese shrub Aucuba japonica, which also bears 
the staminate and pistillate flowers on different plants. For 
some time, only the female plant of this species had been intro- 
duced into British gardens, though at last the male plant having 
been introduced also, the beautiful red berries are freely pro- 
duced and much appreciated. Possibly, by and by, the female 
flower of the maiden-hair tree ma)' be produced in England, as 
it has been in the south of F'rance, where the seed has been 
ripened, and young plants have been raised from it. The seed 
resembles an ovate drupe, an inch in diameter, and it contains a 
kernel of a woody tissue, that breaks easily. The coat of the 
seed becomes fleshy and oily, exhaling when ripe a strong smell 
of rancid butter ; but the kernel tastes like a filbert and is served 
at banquets in Japan as a digestive. Though we can hardly 
