Gingko wood!

The old B & Z building on the campus of Ohio State University is undergoing renovation. My first office in the Department of Plant Biology was in room 356 B & Z and looked out over the back where there were two immense Ginkgo trees. These two trees were cut down yesterday to make room for the new auditorium that will be built during the renovation.

I had asked Rich Hall, Associate Dean of the College of Biological Sciences, if he could arrange for me to get some of the wood from these trees for woodturning. Some of my best memories from B & Z are of those trees blowing in the wind and in the changing fall colors. They were beautiful trees and it's hard to accept that they had to be cut down in the name of progress. I hope to pay homage to them in making some carved ginkgo leaf vessels over the next couple of years.

I was able to salvage four large sections of the trees. The contractors removing the trees loaded these into the back of my Honda Odyssey. They weighed a couple of hundred pounds apiece. I was able to manuever the two smallest ones out of the van by myself, but I had to wait for Richard to get home from school to help with the two larger sections.




Unfortunately, these were female trees and they fell onto the ground covered in their seeds. If you've never smelled ripe ginkgo seeds, you've missed out on one of the most unpleasant odors on the planet. The back of my van now is scented in "ode to ginkgo."