The "A State Record Ginkgo" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Driving around Lancaster Cemetery in Lancaster, PA trying to find the largest ginkgo tree in the state.  Saw an article in the Lancaster Newspaper that told of the many ginkgo trees that are located in the cemetery and how they happened to get there.  Just had to see them for myself so I grabbed my camera and headed to the the cemetery.  I must admit you can't miss them.  They are huge.  Found six of them in various sizes of big, but the one they showed in the newspaper was definitely the largest.  They can reach a height of over 150 feet tall and perhaps the same distance in breadth.  Their leaves are shaped something like a fan.  The largest tree in the cemetery now measures 83 feet high with a trunk circumference of 263 inches and a breadth of 89 feet. The branches seem to be attached haphazardly to the trunk and shooting toward the sky from almost any angle.  The largest ginkgo I saw evidently was struck by lightning and had a limb snapped off in Hurricane Sandy last year, but still is the largest specimen in the cemetery.  Just how did they happen to get planted in the cemetery?  It seems that the German Reformed church established Lancaster Cemetery in December of 1846 after their churchyard burial lot on Orange Street became filled.  The church purchased 10 acres of land along New Holland Avenue and in 1856 Franklin and Marshall College purchased a lot to bury the remains of its revered first president, Dr. Frederick A. Rauch.  Many other faculty and administrators followed in the lot as well as Japanese alumnus George Kinzo Kaneko who had graduated in 1891, taught Japanese at the college., and then died at the age of 29 in 1895.  Kaneko's headstone in near the entrance to the cemetery.  The government of Japan sent six ginkgo trees to Lancaster to honor Kanekeo shortly after he died.   Three of them were planted in the cemetery while the other three were planted on the F&M campus on the other side of town.  Eventually the three at F&M were also moved to the cemetery because of the smell of the fruit they produced.  The female trees produces a fruit that smells putrid, but a few Asian families come to the cemetery every year to harvest the pods of the tree for the fruit.  The ginkgo at the cemetery is the largest in the state, but not the oldest.  That honor goes to a tree neat Philadelphia.  The damage to the local tree from the recent hurricane is severe and will cost possibly over $30,000 to repair.  The cemetery doesn't have the money in the budget, so the cemetery is searching for someone to donate some or all of the money to save the tree.  As I stood beneath the tree, I was amazed at the size of the giant.  I know there are many huge trees in the historical city of Lancaster, but this one is definitely one of the largest.  It provides shelter, shade and a stirring force to the many gravesides that it overlooks daily at the cemetery.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.  PS - photo of the tree and George Kaneko's tombstone follow.