Tuesday, October 7- Class visits with Students and Facultyĭr. Crane also highlights the cultural and social significance of the ginkgo: its medicinal and nutritional uses, its power as a source of artistic and religious inspiration, and its importance as one of the world’s most popular street trees. Renowned botanist Peter Crane explores the history of the ginkgo from its mysterious origin through its proliferation, drastic decline, and ultimate resurgence. Today Ginkgo is beloved for the elegance of its leaves, prized for its edible nuts, and revered for its longevity. A living link to the age of dinosaurs, it survived the great ice ages as a relic in China, but it earned its reprieve when people first found it useful about a thousand years ago. Perhaps the world’s most distinctive tree, Ginkgo has remained stubbornly unchanged for more than two hundred million years. General admission advance: $10 At the door: $15.
The second poem comes from contemporary poet Howard Nemerov, whose poems often incorporate botanical language and themes.Tuesday, October 7, 7 p.m., Bowker Auditorium –Verse Translation by John Whaley, Peter Lang, Berne, 1998, pp. Sir Peter Crane pointed me in the direction of a few works devoted to the Ginkgo, but I just now took the time to look them up and uncover what exactly is encapsulated within them.įirst, looking back to the early days of Ginkgo’s presence in the Western world, is a poem (1815) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, titled simply “Ginkgo biloba:” One particular embodiment of this admiration comes in the world of literature, having been paid homage to by a number of greats in our Western canon. While in the Western world, the Ginkgo, brought back from the Orient in the 17th century, has not taken on religious significance, it has still inspired a sense of mystery, admiration, and, for some, obsession. For a number of Eastern faiths that have roots deeper connected to the regions to which the Ginkgo is native or at least has a few centuries of presence in cultivation the tree takes on a spiritual significance. While Sir Peter Crane did more to detail the history and evolution of the lineage, analyzing it from both a scientific and cultural perspective, than I could hope to add to, he only alluded to some of the other lenses through which the tree has assumed prominence and garnered attention.
While part of me hates to keep harping on a particular theme too much or run the risk of belaboring a single point, I would like to put up one last post about the Ginkgo.
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