Ginkgo - what type is this?

I am very interested in this type of Ginkgo tree from the streets of Japan especially the shape. Is close to the princeton version but is not.

Anyone know which type of Ginkgo this is? I want to get a hold of this version in Canada or USA.

 

Wow they are great looking trees.

I think they seem to be carefully shaped. I wonder if a few of the full size upright cultivars couldn't be trained to give this shape over time, a long time.

 

I have a feeling they are Ginkgo fastigiata, if anyone know where to get them in Canada. Please let me know

 

I thought there was only one Ginko ???

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginkgo_biloba

Liz

 

Yup, "Ginkgo fastigiata" is not a separete species, it's name is correctly Ginkgo biloba 'Fastigiata'

 

I've seen photos of this street elsewhere; the trees are pruned, not showing their natural shape.

Must cost a fortune to grow them like this! Not sure I care for the result, either, I'd prefer them to look more natural.

 

so you think that have someone climb up so high to prune them every year?

 

It definitely looks like it. Japanese folks are very involved in managing the landscape. I went to a talk given by Jake Hobson. Jake worked in Japanese nurseries for a few seasons. He showed pics of trees of all kind being sculpted, protected, supported, manipulated etc.

 

Probably done by a crew with a mobile hydraulic platform, like the ones used for changing street light bulbs - something like this: http://images.inmagine.com/img/dynamicgraphics/va005/va0050008.jpg

I'd guess they also probably only have to do it every 3 or 4 years, not every year.

 

Found the photo I'd seen before - it shows more clearly that they are pruned into their shapes. From the growth of the twigs visible top right, a minimum of 2-3 years between prunings.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Meiji_Shrine_Outer_Garden_Ginkgo_Street_2.jpg

 

Its not unlike what happens here along our footpaths. (Unmade walking track with plantings or natural bush also dirt road). The electricity guys in this case come along yearly and razor growth into contorted hedges. The Cypress hedge up the road looks a bit like the Ginko trees. I have tortured pitostrum (sp) and lilly pilly out side my house. Makes a very effective barrier and looks reasonably natural
Liz

 

but the still have a straight center leader. I want to know which japanese variety is it.

 

If they've been trained over their entire lifetime - very likely so - that would be easy enough to accomplish

 

Sam, if I have understood correctly there is only one Ginkgo biloba.

This tree is either male or female.The female trees produce fruits which are extremely messy and smelly and definitely not the sort of trees that cities would want to plant as a street tree. This could be a problem as a Ginkgo tree does not start to produce fruit until it is 50 or so years old,(to make a deffinite id) so you could end up with a mix of female and male very big trees IF they were grown from seed.

To make sure only male trees are planted as street trees, they are not grown from seed, but are vegetatively propagated. All are clones from a known male tree.

I have been told that the male trees are by natural habit a fastigiate form, unlike the female trees that are wide spreading. Therefore I would suggest that all the trees you see so beautifully trimmed are the male form of the normal Ginkgo biloba.

There are different forms of Ginkgo biloba such as Mariken. Probably found as a freak or witches broom on a normal tree.

http://images.google.com/images?hl=...nkgo biloba mariken&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

 

A popular myth, but there's no truth in it! The only way to tell the sex of a Ginkgo is when it produces male, or female 'cones'.

In Asia, female Ginkgos are preferred over males, because of the edible seeds. In other areas, the reverse applies, because other people are so fussy ;-)

 

Hi,

If I ever want to know anything about Ginkgo I go to this website:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~kwanten/

- IMO one of the best botanical sites on the web.

Boa sorte
Brian

 

bjo what wonderful photos. I have been hoarding two trees in pots for about 5 years now because I was unsure how big they would grow. You have given me the information I need. Down the bottom of the 5 acres they will go and hopefully grow to the beautiful trees in the photos.

Liz

 

http://www.xs4all.nl/~kwanten/hiroshima.htm

This is amazing. One of the pages from the Ginko site

Liz

 

One of the pics at the site is from a cemetery in Philly. There are at least 2 cultivars that originated here: 'Fairmount' named after the park and Rooseveldt named after the Boulevard that is lined with Ginkgos. Philadelphia has ginkgos all over the city. In autumn certain parts of town have sidewalks that glow yellow with fallen leaves.

Many of the street trees exhibit the single leader upright form. In Autumn ginkgo berries litter the sidewalk and they are stinky but it's temporary and folks here make a face and move on.

Pic is of a lil grove of trees that i plucked from sidewalks around town last autumn.

 

Upright etc. cultivars have been selected and grown for years. Don't think I would call objection to the reeking, messy fruits "fussy" - they smell of carrion and can be detected quite some distance away. I once noticed the presence of a fruiting female ginkgo on a local college campus because it could be smelled all the way across their large central lawn, perhaps hundreds of feet away.

 

So what do the seeds taste like then? Hopefully not carrion, I gather the smell comes from the soft part of the fruit which is presumably not eaten?

Edit: Well this partially answers my question, from the site mentioned above:

(http://www.xs4all.nl/~kwanten/usage.htm)

Might have to try and get some.

 

I've seen big sacks of the seeds (cleaned) in a Chinese shop here.

The fleshy coat doesn't smell of carrion; the scented component is butanoic acid (C3H7COOH), which smells like rancid butter or very sweaty socks, not rotting meat (where the main smells are amines (CH3NH2, C2H5NH2, etc.).

One other interesting point, if a Ginkgo 'fruit' with the flesh is stored in alcohol to preserve it, the butanoic acid slowly (over several years) combines with the alcohol to produce ethyl butanoate, which has a very nice apple scent.

 

That's good to hear, I have always preferred the smell of rancid butter and sweaty socks to that of rotting meat, lol. I guess it may be one of those scents I could get used to, like my socks. It can't be that bad if they sell it at market in Asia; fishmarkets also have a strong smell and everyone accepts those, even us westerners.

Did you actually taste any Michael? I am hopefully looking for a first hand report on the flavour.

No Chinese grocery stores in my town, but there is a local Indian store that stocks most Asian ingredients, I'll have a look there.

 

When they are sold in shops, the smelly pulp has already been removed, the nuts don't have any smell. Did get a few but it was a while back and can't remember what they tasted like now.

 

Individuals vary in how things smell to them. This week I picked a Helleborus foetidus leaf for a client to get a whiff of (I was asked why it was called stinking hellebore) and incredibly to me, she could not smell it at all.

Let alone did it stink to her.