ginkgo

lat. name: Ginkgo biloba

Planted around 1870 in the villa garden of Dr. Rabl
Home: East Asia
Family: Ginkgo plants

The ginkgo is a deciduous tree, which has a special position in the history of development in the plant kingdom, because it is half conifer as a "naked seeded" plant and half deciduous tree after the leaf.
Ginkgo is the only living representative of the Ginkgoales, an extinct group of seed plants.
In East Asia the tree is cultivated for its edible seeds or as a temple tree. Dutch sailors brought the first Ginkgo trees from Japan to Europe, where it has been planted as an ornamental tree since about 1730.
Tree mythology: Sacred tree of Asia, a living fossil, undemanding and resistant, giver of comfort and hope, symbol of harmony.
Folk medicine: Seed used for diseases of the respiratory tract and the kidney-bladder area; dried leaves to stimulate blood circulation, especially the brain.
 
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1815                              
(1749 - 1832)
Ginkgo Biloba (double-lobed ginkgo leaf)
This tree's leaf, that from the east 
Entrusted to my garden, 
Gives secret meaning to the taste, 
As it builds the knowing.
If it is a living thing, 
That separates into itself? 
Are they two exquisite, 
That you know her as one?
To answer such questions
I guess I got the point. 
Can't you feel it in my songs? 
That I'm one and two?