CONIFERS GROWN IN SUBURBAN GARDENS. l6l 
here. When well grown it is a pyramidal tree, with a tall straight 
trunk and many spreading branches bearing in summer long 
and short shoots, and having leaves shaped like those of maiden¬ 
hair fern. The male flowers are in loose catkins, bearing a num¬ 
ber of stamens on short slender stalks ; the female flowers, formed 
on another tree, consist of a long peduncle bearing two ovules 
at its summit, each surrounded by a collar-like base. When 
ripe the fruit is like a big yellow cherry, having a fleshy outer 
coat surrounding a woody shell enclosing the seed. A remark¬ 
able archaic character retained by Ginkgo is that the ovules are 
fertilized by active ciliated spermatozoids, as they are in Cycads 
and ferns, and not by merely passive nuclei conveyed by the 
pollen tube, as in conifers and flowering plants. Remains of 
fossil plants closely allied to Ginkgo have been found in Britain 
and in many parts of the world, but at the present time this 
" living fossil,” as Darwin called it, is “ reported to be wild some¬ 
times in China,” but otherwise is known only in gardens. The 
male plant only has been introduced into England. 1 A well¬ 
shaped tree, about forty feet high, said to be the finest in the 
neighbourhood of London, is to be seen in a garden, formerly 
belonging to the Mackenzie family, in George Lane, Woodford. 
It bears abundant stamen-flowers in early summer. (Plate X.) 
The true conifers form by far the largest class of living Gymno- 
sperms. They abound in many parts of the world, especially 
in temperate, subtropical and mountain regions, where they 
•often form dense forests. 
As their name implies, their flowers are usually arranged 
in cones, which are either male or female. They are never borne 
at the apex of the stem, as in the Cycads. The male flowers 
consist of a number of stamens, each with two or more pollen- 
sacs and arranged on a common stalk to form a cone or catkin. 
The female flowers usually form cones, but there are many excep¬ 
tions, as in the large group to which the yew belongs. 
The true meaning or morphology of the different parts of the 
flowers is still a matter on which no final decision has been 
reached by botanists. For our present purpose we may take 
i—Since writing the above, my attention has been drawn to the fact tnat nine years ago, in 
1911, a shoot from a female Ginkgo, growing in the botanic gardens of Montpellier, in the south 
•of France, was grafted on t© the fine old male Ginkgo, in Kew Gardens. Last autumn, when the 
leaves were shed, it was seen that several fruits had been borne on the graft. After this success¬ 
ful experiment it may be hoped that ere many years have passed Ginkgo fruits will be met with 
in many other British gardens. 
M 
