Ginkgo in Ravenna last week
Dear Readers, did any of you manage to identify this magnificent tree from my photograph yesterday? It is the largest Ginkgo that I’ve ever seen, tucked away in the middle of Ravenna. There are lots of other smaller, younger trees, but this one has clearly been there for decades. All the street trees here have a very interesting pruning regime – they seem to be cut back when the trunk is quite short, leaving just a handful of main branches. Plane trees in particular look very different from the ones here in London – they’re much more squat, but maybe they’re easier to manage in a city setting. I didn’t take a photo myself, but you’ll get the idea from the photo below.
Another view of the Ravenna Ginkgo
I feel rather sorry for the little pine tree (?) planted in the lower right-hand corner. It’s trying its best, but it is rather overshadowed by its neighbour. In general, the floral plantings are of the ‘stick-them-in-for-few-weeks-and-then-compost-them’ variety – there are lots of chrysanthemums and begonias which I doubt will do well if the temperature gets lower (I was surprised how cold it was). But there was a rather nice meadow planting around the Tomb of Theodoric, with knapweed and cornflowers and such, though you’ll have to take my word for it this time, as I was too busy photographing the tomb.
Anyhow, it seems that Ginkgos are having ‘a moment’ as street trees (but only the male ones, as you’ll see in my previous post below). In the latest edition of his book ‘London’s Street Trees’, Paul Wood describes how the male trees produce prodigious quantities of pollen, which makes it very unpleasant for hayfever sufferers. On the other hand, arboriculturalists apparently describe Ginkgo as ‘bulletproof’ (it was one of the few trees whose seeds survived the atomic bomb at Hiroshima for example), and so I suspect it will increase in numbers on our streets over the next few years.
Apparently, there is a museum in Weimar dedicated to Ginkgo – this is possibly because Goethe wrote a poem, based on an observation of the strangely-shaped leaf of the tree. The poem was dedicated to Goethe’s friend Marianne von Villemer, but as they saw one another for the last time only eight days after he gave her the poem it’s possible that she wasn’t impressed. Here it is, in translation of course. See if you would have stayed or run away.
In my garden’s care and favour
From the East this tree’s leaf shows
Secret sense for us to savour
And uplifts the one who knows.
Is it but one being single
Which as same itself divides?
Are there two which choose to mingle
So that each as one now hides?
As the answer to such question
I have found a sense that’s true:
Is it not my songs’ suggestion
That I’m one and also two?
Translated by John Whaley
And so, let’s see what I wrote about the tree back in 2018. My, how the time flies!
Ginkgo (Maidenhair) tree in East Finchley cemeteryDear Readers, my visit to East Finchley cemetery last week was the gift that just keeps on giving. I felt that this venerable tree deserved more than a few lines in a longer piece, and so this week I want to look at the ginkgo, a popular street and cemetery tree here in North London, and yet one which I have often hurried past. Before anyone gets over-excited, this is quite clearly not a ‘weed’ by any normal definition, but have you ever tried finding a ‘weed’ in mid-November which, after nearly four years of weekly posts, hasn’t been covered? Flexibility will be required from hereon in, I suspect.
Gingko is immediately identifiable from its leaves. No other living tree has fan-shaped foliage, but fossilised ginkgo leaves have been found from 270 million years ago. The tree existed at the same time as mare’s tail, which was a Wednesday Weed a few weeks ago, but, unlike that plant, poor ginkgo really is the last of its kind. There is nothing else alive that is remotely like it.
Once I spotted one ginkgo, I found them everywhere: at the end of Archway Road, in St Pancras and Islington Cemetery, and on Durham Road. But they are, in some ways, problematic. Ginkgo trees have separate sexes ( the technical term is dioecious), but each sex has some disadvantages as a street tree. The female trees produce a fruit which looks a little like an apricot (the name ‘ginkgo’ is said to come from a misspelling of the Japanese name for the plant, which means ‘silver apricot’) but if this falls and starts to rot, it is said to produce a smell that combines the odour of vomit with the stench of rancid butter. The pollen of the male trees, which naturally produce no fruit, is highly allergenic, and so not good for hay fever sufferers. Nonetheless, the tree is beautiful enough for groundskeepers everywhere to keep planting it.
Incidentally, among its many peculiarities is the fact that the male ginkgo produces sperm which is covered in tiny mobile hairs that enable it to move. In this, ginkgo is similar to mosses and algae, but completely different from flowering plants. It has several adaptations to a time before these competitors came along: for example, it grows very quickly to a height of about 10 meters before extending any side shoots, which was probably because most plants at this time were ferns and horsetails, and so the need was to get as high as possible as quickly as possible, and then to shade out everybody else.
![Photo One (Fossil gingko) by By User:SNP(upload to en:wikipedia) ; User:tangopaso (transfer to Commons) (English Wikipedia) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://i0.wp.com/bugwomanlondon.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/ginkgo_biloba_macabee_bc.jpg?resize=550%2C412&ssl=1)
A fossilised gingko leaf from the Eocene (56-33.9 million years ago) (Photo One)
Not only is the ginkgo a very ancient species, but individual trees are both resilient and long-lived. Six ginkgos which were within 2 kms of the epicentre of the Hiroshima atomic bomb blast survived, and are given the honorable name of ‘hibakujumoku’, or ‘survivor trees’.
At the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shinto shrine in Japan a giant ginkgo which had stood beside the staircase since the creation of the building in 1063 finally collapsed in 2010. A botanist who examined it declared that the trunk had rotted. It was thought that that was the end, until both the original tree stump and a piece of the tree planted nearby started to produce a fine crop of new leaves.
Never write off a ginkgo! (Photo Two)
If you go into any chemist, you are likely to see herbal preparations with pictures of that distinctive fan-shaped leaf on the box. It is often marketed as a way of delaying the effects of old age, perhaps because the tree itself is so sprightly, and we hope to acquire some of its characteristics. It is said to be beneficial for macular degeneration, dementia, forgetfulness generally, ‘post-menopausal cognitive decline’ ( I guess that’s when I start a sentence and have no idea what I meant to say by the time I get to the end), post-stroke recovery, arterial disease and tinnitus. Oh that it did half of what it says on the packet, but sadly scientific trials have all currently drawn a blank. There is also some fear that if you are taking a blood-thinner such as warfarin or coumadin, overdoing it with the gingko will result in rather thinner blood than you were hoping for. On the other hand, Chinese doctors have been using ginkgo since 2800 BC, so I refuse to lose hope. The plant is certainly full of interesting chemicals such as amentoflavone (which can inhibit the uptake of certain medications) and ginkgolic acid, which is highly allergenic, so maybe these can be turned from ‘the dark side’.
You might think that there would be nothing edible to be found on a ginkgo tree, what with all that talk of the smell of the fruit, but the seeds of the ginkgo (once the smelly stuff is removed) are a traditional food in both China and Japan. In particular, they form part of a celebratory dish called ‘Buddha’s Delight’ which is served at Chinese New Year, a time when a vegetarian diet is thought to bring good luck. And very tasty it looks too.
Whilst researching this piece, I came across this painting by the Japanese artist Watanabe Shotei, and promptly fell in love with it. I like the way that the crow is framed, and the way that the autumn-yellow ginkgo leaves are scattering as she flies through them. This is very different from his other, more formal work, and I think that it sums up the mischievousness of the bird as it ploughs through the august foliage. Or maybe it’s just me.
Flower and bird by Watanabe Shotei (Public Domain)
And finally, there is a belief that even in the shedding of its leaves, the ginkgo is not like other trees. Whilst the oak leaves and the maple leaves drop off one at a time, all the leaves from a ginkgo are said to fall in one night. I can’t say I’ve seen much evidence of that happening with the trees that I know, but maybe this is the case in harsher climates. The poet Howard Nemerov had this to say on the subject:
Late in November, on a single night
Not even near to freezing, the ginkgo trees
That stand along the walk drop all their leaves
In one consent, and neither to rain nor to wind
But as though to time alone: the golden and green
Leaves litter the lawn today, that yesterday
Had spread aloft their fluttering fans of light.
What strange communication occurs between these ancient trees, I wonder, and what complex combination of chemical signals would give rise to such a thing? The more I learn about trees, the less I know.
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