2/21/09 ANOTHER "IS NOT" (with a twist)

Saturday, 9:00 AM. 18 degrees, wind NNE, light with stronger gusts. The sky is mostly overcast but the sun is struggling through, and the barometer s rising, predicting mostly sunny skies.
Yesterday we discussed “evergreens that are not” and it is appropriate today to discuss again another “evergreen that is not,” but with a twist. The young tree pictured (and its leaf) is Ginko biloba, the maidenhair tree, so-called because the bi-lobed leaf resembles that of the maidenhair fern. The Ginko is the most ancient of modern broad leafed deciduous trees, its fossil record going back to the Jurassic, the age of the dinosaurs. It is considered by many to be a true “missing link” between needled conifers (angiosperms, or naked seeds) and modern deciduous trees (gymnosperms, or covered seeds) because it is actually, according to its reproductive structures, a conifer, with male and female cones and naked seeds, rather than seeds borne in a true fruit. But it has modern, deciduous tree leaves. It was found in the Eighteenth Century growing in a remote Buddhist monastery, and since then has been propagated and grown around the world. It is a very tough, adaptable and hardy ornamental and street tree, and has a gorgeous golden fall color. Only male trees should be planted, as the fleshy female cones have a very putrid odor. The seed, however, is edible and considered a delicacy in the Orient, and the leaves are much used in herbal medicine as a brain stimulant. It is truly a living fossil.