Ginkgo ~ "Bearer of Hope"

I bought a little Ginkgo tree at the Cape Cod Herb Farm last year. It is doing wonderfully. In fall the green leaves turn yellow. We had fun at the farm, attending a class and going on a herb walk.

"Extreme examples of the Ginkgo's tenacity may be seen in Hiroshima, Japan, where six trees growing between 1-2 km from the 1945 atom bomb explosion were among the few living things in the area to survive the blast. While almost all other plants (and animals) in the area were destroyed, the ginkgos, though charred, survived and were soon healthy again. The trees are alive to this day.

A- bombed Ginkgo trees in Hiroshima, Japan.

Ginkgo has long been cultivated in China; some planted trees at temples are believed to be over 1,500 years old. The first record of Europeans encountering it is in 1690 in Japanese temple gardens, where the tree was seen by the German botanist Engelbert Kaempfer. Because of its status in Buddhism and Confucianism, the Ginkgo is also widely planted in Korea and parts of Japan; in both areas, some naturalization has occurred, with Ginkgos seeding into natural forests.
The ginkgo leaf is the symbol of the Urasenke school of Japanese tea ceremony. The tree is the national tree of China." ~ Wikipedia