Nearly a year to the day after posting the photos of the Ginkgo biloba outside Osterley tube station, here's a rather sad update:
That was what it looked like yesterday. Hasn't come into leaf at all. I thought it had shed its leaves very early last year (and the leaves were yellow even by Ginkgo standards). I don't know if it's possible for them to be dormant for a year and come back to life later, but I suspect the council workers won't let it hang around long enough to find out. How very depressing that they can survive an atom bomb but the Great West Road has been too much for this one. I really hope it hasn't been poisoned.
That was what it looked like yesterday. Hasn't come into leaf at all. I thought it had shed its leaves very early last year (and the leaves were yellow even by Ginkgo standards). I don't know if it's possible for them to be dormant for a year and come back to life later, but I suspect the council workers won't let it hang around long enough to find out. How very depressing that they can survive an atom bomb but the Great West Road has been too much for this one. I really hope it hasn't been poisoned.
Inspired by comments earlier today, I took some photos of the tree when I walked home. It certainly looks very Ginkgo-like:
So while Hubster pretended he wasn't related to me, I scoured the leaves for a sign of bifurcation, and I found it:
My camera phone isn't great, but while there are one or two bifurcated leaves, most of them are undivided fans. How odd.
It seems like such a random thing, to put a single Ginkgo outside a London Underground station on one of the country's main arterial roads. I'm quite tempted to contact Hounslow Borough Council and ask them why. But that would make me a fully paid-up member of the green ink brigade.
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