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 Last
updates:
* New photo photospecial page: Old Ginkgo with witches broom in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. * Added video on my Art-page of Ginko carbon table by Ross Lovegrove. |
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January - June
2013 (new on top)
*
New photo
photospecial page: 15 Ginkgo trees, Bologna, Italy.
*
New topic: Ginkgo makes it to Yale.
*
Added on Where-page: photo weeping Ginkgo with chichi:
Peoria, Illinois
*
Article added on my Fossils-page: - Chung-Shien
Wu, et al. Chloroplast Phylogenomics Indicates that Ginkgo biloba Is
Sister to Cycads.
*
Added on my
Literature-page: "Evidence and Rational
Based Research on Chinese Drugs" by Hildebert Wagner, Gudrun Ulrich-Merzenic
+ "Ginkgo: The Tree That Time Forgot" by Peter Crane.
*
New photo photospecial page: Ginkgo tree, 1808, with chichi.
Kraków,
Botanic Garden of Jagiellonian University.
*
New
topic: Washington Ginkgo mistakenly cut down.
*
Follow me on Twitter:
updates website and blog + tweets related to the
Ginkgo tree.
*
Added video of name calligrapy on Name-page.
*
Added to my
Art-page: Fashion designers and
Ginkgo.
*
Added photos
of old female Ginkgo with chichi,
Jagellonian University Botanical garden in Kraków, Poland.
*
New
topic: Ginkgo and memory: new long-term study.
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Added to my
Art-page:
photos of Ginkgo Gate, Botanic Garden Adelaide, Australia.
*
New
topic: Update of Ginkgo afforestation project in Argentina.
*
New photo photospecial page: Frosted Ginkgo leaf.
*
Update of my
Awards-page: Yale University.
*
Added pdf to download my Tree-page.
July - December
2012 (new on top)
*
Added new page: Ginkgo biloba silvestre, montañas
Dalou, China.
*
Added
new page: Wild Ginkgo trees Dalou Mountains,
China.
*
New photo photospecial page: Ginkgo leaves.
*
New
topic: Jurassic mimicry between a hangingfly and a Ginkgo from China.
*
Added on Tree-page: HD-video of one of the oldest
Ginkgo trees outside Asia: Geetbets, Belgium, c. 1750.
*
Added to the
poem 'The Consent' by Howard Nemerov:
French translation.
*
Added to my
Art-page:
photos I made of Ginkgo Project Beekbergen (architecture).
*
Added to my
Art-page (picture gallery): Ginkgo
sculpture by Gerri Grijsen + Floriade 2012.
*
New photos photospecial page: Wild Ginkgo trees in Dalou Mountains,
southwestern China: forest + seedling.
*
New
topic: Ginkgo and Alzheimer's disease.
*
Added to my
Art-page (stamps): Ginkgo stamp
Japan: Tokyo, Meiji Jingu Gaien Park.
*
New photos photospecial page: Ginkgo trees and gardens, Floriade
2012 - World Horticultural Expo.
*
New
topic: Evidence of wild Ginkgo biloba in Dalou Mountains, China.
*
Added on my
Literature-page: book by Yiyun
Li.
*
New photo photospecial page: Ginkgo leaves.
*
Added on my
Fossils-page: video about the
history of ginkgo.
*New
topic: A Modern Insect Pollinator from the Dinosaurs Time.
*
New photo photospecial page: 7 Ginkgo trees in Bologna, Italy.
January - June
2012 (new on top)
*
New photo photospecial page: Pollen on male Ginkgo tree in April.
*
Added on my
Usage-page: photos of big-ginkgo hairstyle.
*
Added photo Ginkgo adiantoides fossil, Oligocene,
Oregon.
*
Added to my
Art-page (picture gallery): Architecture:
Ginkgo project Beekbergen + antique Japanese dolls SAGA-NINGYÔ.
*
New photo photospecial page: Ginkgo trees and Wollemi pine, Evolution
garden, Valloires gardens, Argoules, France.
*
Added to my
Art-page (picture gallery): Kosode
with Ginkgo leaves, Edo period.
*
New
topic: Glaucoma and Ginkgo biloba.
*
New
topic: Alan Mitchell lecture at Kew Gardens about the Ginkgo.
*
Added Google scholar search box on Links-page.
*
New photo photospecial page: Ginkgo leaves in fall.
*
Added on my
Literature-page: French youth book "Le
Ginkgo".
*
New
topic: read / download book on Ginkgo biloba.
*
Added on my
FAQ-page several Ginkgo nurseries in
the Netherlands and Belgium.
*
New photo + video photospecial page: Ginkgo biloba trees in Amsterdam.
*
Added Feedburner
:
get updates of forum-blog and website via email.
I
don't mention minor updates here. Not all changes are updated on the German/French/Dutch
summaries.
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Ginkgo
makes it to Yale
Ginkgo,
the tree that time forgot, paper book by Peter Crane.
Sir
Peter Crane is Carl W. Knobloch Jr. Dean of the School of Forestry &
Environmental Studies and professor at Yale University, New Haven, USA.
Illustrations:
61 black and white drawings by Polyanna Von Knorring. Yale
University Press, March 2013.
Peter Crane’s
book is about the survival of the Ginkgo biloba tree.
It is not
just a scholarly monograph but a popular science book, presenting a blend
of science, culture and personal experiences.
After an
introduction to the living tree Crane, a palaeobotanist, explores the evolutionary
history of ginkgo over the past 250 million years from its origin, proliferation,
eventual decline, and ultimate resurgence through its association with
people. He also highlights the cultural and social significance of the
ginkgo, its usage and future. The text is interspersed with digressions
on people behind a specific aspect, biology and tree lore. Crane's book
is both entertaining and informative.
It is composed
from a selection of available sources and stories, important key resources
are mentioned in the Preface (read below). The extensive footnotes and
bibliography provide jumping off points to study the Ginkgo in more detail.
In the book’s Preface
Peter Crane features my internet website The Ginkgo Pages as a most
important key resource:
“Research for this
book benefited greatly from the availability of a few key resources that
had already drawn together much scattered material on ginkgo, most important
the
wonderful Ginkgo Pages Web site by Cor Kwant….”:
My website is mentioned as an important key resource in new Yale University book about Ginkgo. bit.ly/11fvcuotwitter.com/theginkgopages…
— The Ginkgo Tweets (@theginkgopages) March 20, 2013
More Ginkgo books can be found on the internet, some are mentioned on my Literature-page.
Washington
Ginkgo mistakenly cut down
Washington D.C.,
Farragut Square, near White House:
A historic Ginkgo
tree, the largest Ginkgo in Washington, was mistakenly cut down.
The male tree was 102 feet tall, with a crown spread of 79 feet and trunk
circumference of 142 inches.
The National Park
Service said the contractor was supposed to cut down a dead ash tree on
the other side of the park. There was nothing wrong with the Ginkgo.
Historian Jonathan
Pliska wrote the Ginkgo was probably planted in 1873 or earlier and been
incorporated into the design of the square, which honors Adm. David Glasgow
Farragut.
Read more in this
column by John Kelly in the Washington
Post. Update and video
on my blog.
Update
of Ginkgo afforestation project
Inés
Fangano, Project Coordinator of Lincoln School in La Plata, Argentina,
writes:
"In 2010 we started
an institutional project "Forestar con Ginkgo Biloba" and you published
it in your web page.
I am now writing
to you to tell you that the project is successfully well on its way and,
up to now, we have got 800 trees, 60 of which are in flowerpots in our
nursery. These will eventually be transplanted in soil in the school playground
or in some park or green place which we will call "Paseo de los Ginkgos".
We have been sowing
since 2010, and every year we obtain about 250 trees; so all the students
who graduate every year get one of these trees which was planted the same
year. The rest of the trees are sold at the Science Fair so as to collect
money to support our nursery."
Researchers
working in northeastern China have discovered a new species of hangingfly
that used its wings to mimic the multi-lobed leaves of an ancient ginkgo-like
tree.
Dong Ren et al.,
'Jurassic mimicry between a hangingfly and a Ginkgo from China', 2012 PNAS,
doi: 10.1073/pnas.1205517109
Pictures:
- Art by Wang
Chen, from Wang et al., 2012.
- Juracimbrophlebia
ginkgofolia from PNAS 2012.
More
than 110 million years ago, in the age of the dinosaurs, a group of insects
delivering pollen became trapped in resin beads. An international research
team found four female thysanopterans, also called thrips, that had
been enclosed in the amber in Álava (North of Spain) for 105-110
million years, with their bodies covered with pollen of gymnosperms.
It
is the oldest evidence of pollination discovered so far —and the only one
from the Mesozoic Era— that has been presented in a paper published in
the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
One
of the females became trapped in the resin when transporting 140 pollen
grains, whereas another was transporting 137 grains. These insects are
less than two millimetres long and exhibit highly specialized hairs with
a ringed structure which had never been seen before and which increases
their ability to collect and transport pollen grains. These hairs are very
similar to the ones of bees, which have the same function. The study concludes
that pollen is from a kind of cycad or ginkgo
tree. Only one species
of ginkgo trees, Ginkgo biloba, currently survives, which is considered
a living fossil.
Reconstruction of a sample of Gymnopollisthrips on an ovulate organ of an extinct ginkgo. Picture: Enrique Peñalver |
Gymnopollisthrips with pollen |
For
which evolutionary reason did these tiny insects, 100 million years ago,
collect and transport ginkgo pollen? Their ringed hairs cannot have grown
due to an evolutionary selection benefitting the trees. The benefit for
the thrips can only be explained by the possibility to feed their larvae
with pollen.
Why
came these tiny insects of the Cretaceous, whose species was named Gymnopollisthrips
by researchers, to thrust in the pollen of plants? The researchteam assumes
that this species formed colonies with larvae living in the ovules of some
kind of ginkgo for shelter and protection, and female insects transported
pollen from the male ginkgo cones to the female ovules to feed the larvae
and at the same time pollinate the trees.
Only amber can preserve behavioral features like pollination in such rich detail over millions of years. 100 million years ago, flowering plants started to diversify enormously, eventually replacing conifers as the dominant species. “This is the oldest direct evidence for pollination, and the only one from the age of the dinosaurs. The co-evolution of flowering plants and insects, thanks to pollination, is a great evolutionary success story. It began about 100 million years ago, when this piece of amber fossil was produced by resin dropping from a tree, which today is the oldest fossil record of pollinating insects. Thrips might indeed turn out to be one of the first pollinator groups in geological history, long before evolution turned some of them into flower pollinators", concludes Carmen Soriano, one of the researchers.
Read more: ScienceDaily + University of Barcelona.
Doi: 10.1073/pnas.1120499109 PNAS May 29, 2012 vol. 109 no. 22 8623-8628 .
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Moved to my blog.
 You
can visit my Blog - Forum: many posts about the Ginkgo,
photos, videos and reactions to questions by readers (or ask a question yourself):
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If
you have news/info/photo(s)/videos etc. for my pages then
please send me an email:  |
© Cor
Kwant
Copyright
information.
