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Friday, February 22, 2019

73 Years Later, the "A-Bomb" Ginkgo Trees Still Grow in Hiroshima

73 Years Later, the "A-Bomb" Ginkgo Trees Still Grow in Hiroshima
"There’s a huge paradox at the heart of this
Buy : Ginkgo biloba tree seed/plants only at : 
Ginkgo trees

On August 6, 1945, an Allied plane dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, creating a fireball 1,200 feet in diameter. Disaster rained down upon the city, killing an estimated 150,000 people and leveling both the biological and man-made landscape. Little was left standing, but somehow the ginkgo trees were able to weather one of the most destructive moments in human history.

Those trees, now dubbed “A-bombed trees,” or hibakujumoku, are still in Hiroshima today, monuments to both humanity’s capacity for destruction and nature’s ability to withstand us at our worst. But while these roughly 170 ginkgo trees are now famous for surviving the Hiroshima blast, ginkgos as a species have persisted through a 200-million-year history of close calls that laid the foundation for its ability to withstand the A-bomb attack, explains Sir Peter Crane, Ph.D., director of Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
“A lot of trees are resilient, but ginkgo seems particularly so,” Crane tells Inverse. “But the thing you have to remember is that there’s a huge paradox at the heart of this ginkgo story, and that is it very nearly went extinct.”

The Ginkgo Survival Paradox
Plants with seeds can be broken down into two categories: angiosperms, also known as flowering plants, and gymnosperms, or “naked seed plants.” Ginkgo trees fall loosely in the category of gymnosperms but make up a subclass called Ginkgoidae. The ginkgos we know today are the only remaining member of that subclass.
In the Jurassic period, Crane explains, ginkgos had diversified and flourished across Laurasia, the precursor to the continent of Asia. But the fossil record shows the ginkgos’ golden days weren’t destined to last. Over the course of several million years, ginkgos begin to slowly disappear from the fossil record. By the Pleistocene, which began roughly 2.5 million years ago, glaciation had killed off nearly all the different ginkgo lineages, leaving only a handful behind in the forests of central China.

“At the end of the last ice age, it was down to a few restricted populations in China, from which all the living ginkgos that we see today are descended, whether they’re in Manhattan or Tokyo or San Francisco or Seoul,” says Crane.

Having survived the mass extinction, this tiny enclave of tough Chinese ginkgos was quiet for a few million years. But eventually, they began to spread once again with a little help from humans. Crane estimates that between 1300 and 1400, the trees made their way to Japan. Once they got there, the evolutionary toughness of these “living fossils” was tested a second time by destructive forces that strangely set the stage for their eventual survival at Hiroshima.

The Great Kanto Earthquake
In 1923, a catastrophic earthquake struck just south of Tokyo with a magnitude of 7.9, setting the city ablaze. Only about 10,000 of the ginkgos that had made their way to Japan 500 years earlier were left standing in the city. But within months, people started to notice something odd. While all the other trees died, the ginkgos had slowly begun to grow again. The bark and outer rings of the trees were scorched, but the living cells within had clung to life.

“The Japanese noted that the ginkgos survived disproportionately from other trees,” Crane says. “The living tissues of the trees were not completely damaged by the fire; the same way they weren’t damaged by the Hiroshima bomb. After the great Kanto fire when they started to replant, they focused on the gingko because they knew it was particularly resistant to fire.”

A replanting effort began, wholly focused on the strange persistence of the ginkgo. Roughly 16,000 new gingko trees were planted across the country by the Japanese government, and a handful of them made their way to Hiroshima, where their will to live was tested once again just over 20 years later.
A “Cylinder of Living Cells”

In August 1945, Hiroshima’s ginkgo trees were in full leaf. When the bomb hit, the heat immediately burned those leaves into nonexistence. The branches were instantaneously stripped away, leaving the outer bark completely scorched.

But, as Crane explains, the tree was still alive on the inside. Somewhere underneath all of the destruction, a tiny cylinder of “living cells” had to have survived. Fortunately for the ginkgo tree, the extreme organization of its cell tissues created a compartment that was immune to destruction. On its very outside is the bark, a shell of hard, dead cells. Inside is the softer phloem, which carries sugars that feed the other cells. Then comes the xylem, a wood-producing layer of the tree. Closest to the core is the cambium, which Crane calls a “cylinder of living cells.”

The A-bomb almost certainly destroyed the dead outer layers, but Crane hypothesizes that the ginkgo bark was just strong enough to protect the life within.

“So now you’ve got a bare tree with no leaves, but come spring, there’s still enough energy there where buds can be developed and new leaves can start to form,” he says.

“It’s those living tissues that would supply the nutrients coming out from the roots that would differentiate into leaves the next season.”

The Process of Rebirth
In the autumn of 1945, the trees would still have been recovering from the enormous shock of the A-bomb. But by then the roots of the ginkgo, deep in the earth, were steadily collecting essential nutrients despite the lasting radiation from the bomb. This durability is another part of the ginkgo’s survival toolkit says Deanna Curtis, curator of Woody Plants and landscape manager at the New York Botanical Garden.

“I would think that the location of the tree and exactly where the tree’s roots were going would have to have played a role in this tree’s survival,” Curtis tells Inverse. “Ginkgo are considered tolerant of a variety of stressful soil conditions, which lead to their use as a common street tree.”
The ginkgo trees that are currently marked at Hiroshima all stand within 2,200 meters of the center of the blast. They would have been exposed to massive amounts of radiation — even strange black rain, dark with ash and other particulates that fell in the days following the explosion. But even after being exposed to what were perhaps the most stressful soil conditions in the history of the planet, the trees survived.

In the spring, the ginkgos bloomed again and continued to do so every spring after that. Today, each tree has a name and is marked by a plaque. They’re now natural memorials, reminders that evolution has equipped life to survive even the greatest catastrophes wrought by humans.


“That’s what caught people’s imaginations,” Crane concludes. “You have this incredible scene of devastation, and it would take months for people to come to grips with it. Just as they had gone through the winter, out pop these new leaves from trees that everyone thought were dead. That’s the power of the ginkgo story.”

Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Ginkgo trees for cultivation

Ginkgo biloba has been proven to improve short-term memory, alleviate allergies, relieve 
depression, alertness and boost circulation.  Ginkgo, which dates back 270 million years, has long been grown for its leaf, which is dried and processed into powders, pills and teas.

Buy Ginkgo plant/seeds
More details: http://jkmpic.blogspot.in
Mob09419966983/09858986794
Landline: 01933-223705

Saturday, February 9, 2019

larkspur-Delphinium seeds for sale

Delphinium-larkspur seeds

Delphinium is a genus of about 300 species of perennial  flowering plants in the family Ranunculaceae,  native throughout the  Northern  Hemisphere   and also on the high mountains of   tropical Africa. All members of   the genus  Delphinium are toxic to humans and livestock.

250US$ 500 seeds pkt 
(Other pacakages 1000/5000)
write us at : jkmpic@gmail.com

Mob: 09858986794/09419966983
Ph: 01933-223705

Wednesday, February 6, 2019

Himalayan Bird Cherry-Prunus cornuta Kashmir

Synonyms: Padus cornuta

Family: Rosaceae (Rose Family)

Himalayan bird cherry
Prunus cornuta, the Himalayan bird cherry, is a species of 
bird cherry native to the foothills of the Himalayas, 
including China and the countries of the 
Indian subcontinent. 

A medium-sized tree, it can reach 
18 m. It is used for a rootstock for 
sweet cherries in Kashmir.

Although no specific mention has been seen 
for this species, all members of the genus contain 
amygdalin and prunasin, substances which break 
down in water to form hydrocyanic acid (cyanide or prussic acid). In small amounts this exceedingly poisonous compound stimulates respiration, improves digestion and gives 

Availability of Fruit/seed/wood chips/planting material
mail us at: jkmpic@gmail.com
POB: 667 GPO Srinagar SGR JK 190001
Ph: 09858986794/09419966983
Landline: 01933-223705



Sunday, February 3, 2019

herbal gardens in schools

Jammu and Kashmir Medicinal Plants Introduction Centre maintains full-fledged herbal garden comprising of more than 300 medicinal herbs & plants. The garden functions as an educational display of medicinal plants for the College Students and visitors. Medicinal plants such as Herbs, Crude Drugs, Herbal Seeds, Herbal Roots, Forest Tree seeds, Temperate fruit plants, Medicinal herbs, Flower seeds and much more.....etc. being mentioned in the herbal garden.

Buy plant seed and material
More details: http://jkmpic.blogspot.in
Ph: 09858986794/09419966983
Landline: 01933-223705

Saturday, February 2, 2019

ginkgo seeds for sale in india

Ginkgo biloba has been proven to improve short-term memory, 
Ginkgo tree seeds for sale
alleviate allergies, relieve
depression, alertness and boost circulation.  Ginkgo, which 
dates back 270 million years, has long been grown
 for its leaf, which is dried and processed into powders, 
pills and teas.

Buy Ginkgo plant/seeds
More details: http://jkmpic.blogspot.in
Ph: 09858986794/09419966983
Landline: 01933-223705


It has beautiful collections of various medicinal plants.
Following plants are present in herbal garden:

Tragopogon dubius

Centre for High Altitude Biology
POB 667 GPO Srinagar SGR J&K 190001
Ph: 09858986794/09419966983/01933-223705
e-mail: jkmpic@gmail.com
More details: https://jkmpic.blogspot.com/2019/01/centre-for-high-altitude-biology-cehab.html

Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Centre for High Altitude Biology-Kashmir

Herb Garden plays a central role in the education of our students. 
Botanical medicine students study and cultivate a variety of 
medicinal plants throughout their life cycle. Many of these 
plants are harvested at their seasonal peak for creating 
medicinal tinctures and salves. Nutrition classes use the 
cultivated culinary herbs and organic vegetables in 
the instition's whole-food kitchen lab. 
The garden is designed, cultivated and 
managed by students and volunteers 
under the guidance of the garden manager 
and assistant garden manager with a 
combined total over 21 years of experience.

Availability: Herbs, Crude Drugs, Herbal Seeds, Herbal Roots, Forest Tree seeds, Temperate fruit plants, Medicinal herbs, Flower seeds and much more.....

POB 667 GPO Srinagar SGR J&K 190001
Ph: 09858986794/09419966983/01933-223705
e-mail: jkmpic@gmaiil.com

medicinal plants used as antitumor agents in kashmir,ethnobotanical uses of anti-cancer herbs in kashmir