Carolyn Kunin: "Oak stories? Pnin? Belochkin/Belkina -- Squirrel Nutkin? Eichkatsel!! Auf Deutsch squirrels are called little oak tree cats. Cute (mignon), huh? In Russian (belkin) they are apparently white things."

Jansy Mello: There are hidden Gingko biloba stories, too, in ADA and PF. 

Goethe's verses, read with your theory in mind of a split John Shade/Kinbote, the divided leaf suggesting the image of "two in one," could be applicable - but only in a very superficial reading, out of context. I haven't yet developped any ideas, or any binding relationships: I'm still returning to the Gingko (I believe there are more informations in the VN-L archives) and being confused all over again.

Here is the poem (Goethe's)

 

Gingo Biloba
This leaf from a tree in the East,
Has been given to my garden.
It reveals a certain secret,
Which pleases me and thoughtful people.
Is it a living being,
Which has separated in itself?
Or are these two, who chose
To be recognized as one?
Answering this kind of question,
Haven't I found the proper meaning,
Don't you feel in my songs,
That I'm one and double?

John Shade's poem, itself, seems to be totally unrelated:

CK's note to line 49: "Our poet shared with the English masters the noble knack of transplanting trees into verse with their sap and shade. Many years ago Disa, our King’s Queen, whose favorite trees were the jacaranda and the maidenhair, copied out in her album a quatrain from John Shade’s collection of short poems Hebe’s Cup, which I cannot refrain from quoting here (from a letter I received on April 6, 1959, from southern France):"
 
The Sacred Tree
The ginkgo leaf, in golden hue, when shed,
A muscat grape,
Is an old-fashioned butterfly, ill-spread,
In shape.