1895, p. 444. We are indebted to Mrs. Archibald Little for a photograph taken by her in Western China, of a tree 19½ feet round the base, and larger above, which very well shows these excrescences (Plate 23).
Identification
In summer the leaves are unmistakable. In winter the long and short shoots should be examined. The long shoot of one year's growth is round, smooth, brownish, and shining, the terminal buds being larger than the scattered lateral buds, which come off at a wide angle. The buds are conical, and composed of several imbricated brown dotted scales. The leaf-scars show 2 small cicatrices, and are fringed above with white pubescence. The short shoots are spurs of varying length, up to an inch or more, stout, ringed, and bearing at their apex a bud surrounded by several double-dotted leaf-scars. In Pseudolarix and the larches, which have somewhat similar spurs, the leaf-scars are much smaller, and show on their surface only one tiny cicatrice. In Taxodium there are no spurs, and the scars which are left where the twigs have fallen off show only one central cicatrice.
Varieties
The following forms are known in cultivation:—
Var. variegata. Leaves blotched and streaked with pale yellow.
Var. pendula. Branches more or less pendulous.
Var. macrophylla laciniata. Leaves much larger than in the ordinary form, 8 inches or more in width, and divided into 3 to 5 lobes, which are themselves subdivided.
Var. triloba. Scarce worthy of recognition, as the leaves in all Ginkgo trees are exceedingly variable in lobing.
Var. fastigiata. Columnar in shape, the branches being directed almost vertically upwards.[1]
Distribution and History
The wild habitat of Ginkgo biloba, the only species now living, is not known for certain. The late Mrs. Bishop, in a letter to the Standard, Aug. 17, 1899, reported that she had observed it growing wild in Japan, in the great forest northward from Lebungd on Volcano Bay in Yezo, and also in the country at the sources of the great Gold and Min rivers in Western China. However, all scientific travellers in Japan and the leading Japanese botanists and foresters deny its being indigenous in any part of Japan; and botanical collectors have not observed it truly wild in China. Consul-General Hosie[2] says it is common in Szechuan, especially in the hills bounding the upper waters of the river Min; but he does not explicitly assert that it is wild there. Its native habitat has yet to be
- ↑ See Garden, 1890, xxxviii. 602. An interesting article by W. Falconer, who gives some curious details concerning the Ginkgo tree in the United States.
- ↑ Parliamentary Papers, China, No. 5, 1904; Consul-General Hosie's Report, 18. Mr. E.H. Wilson in all his explorations of Western China never saw any but cultivated trees.
