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Portrait of Ginkgo

Nature · Trees

Ginkgo

Deciduous · to 25–30 m · a lineage over 200 million years old

Ginkgo biloba — Ginkgoaceae

The maidenhair tree is a living fossil: the sole surviving species of an entire division of seed plants, Ginkgophyta, whose fossils from the Jurassic are almost identical to the tree in the park. Its fan-shaped, forked-veined leaves are unlike any other tree's, it turns a clear brilliant yellow in autumn, and female trees drop seeds that smell of rancid butter.

How to spot them

  • ▸Fan-shaped leaves up to 12 cm wide, often notched into two lobes, with veins that fork repeatedly and never form a net
  • ▸Leaves clustered in tufts on short woody spurs along the branch
  • ▸Uniform clear yellow autumn colour, the whole crown often dropping in a day or two
  • ▸Female trees carry fleshy yellow seeds that smell strongly of vomit or rancid butter
  • ▸Grey, corky, deeply fissured bark; stiff, rather angular branching

How to know it

Fan-shaped leaves, usually notched into two lobes, with veins that fork again and again and never form a net

Ginkgo — Ginkgo biloba, the maidenhair tree.

The sole surviving species of an entire division of seed plants, unchanged since the Jurassic

Ginkgo. Its division is Ginkgophyta.

Female trees drop fleshy seeds that smell of rancid butter, so cities plant only male grafts

Ginkgo. Butanoic acid gives the smell.

Six trees survived within about two kilometres of the Hiroshima hypocentre and are still living

Ginkgo — the hibakujumoku, or survivor trees.

Its motile, swimming sperm — shared only with cycads among seed plants — were discovered by Hirase in 1896

Ginkgo.

A specimen planted at Kew in 1762 is one of that garden's Old Lions

Ginkgo.

Though planted in streets worldwide, it is assessed as Endangered in the wild, surviving in a few Chinese populations

Ginkgo.

Quick-fire facts

  • •Ginkgo biloba — biloba means 'two-lobed', for the notched leaf; the English name maidenhair tree comes from the leaf's likeness to the maidenhair fern
  • •The only living species of the division Ginkgophyta, and a true living fossil: Jurassic fossils are near-identical
  • •Dioecious: only female trees produce the foul-smelling fleshy seeds, so male clones are planted in streets
  • •The seed's stink comes chiefly from butanoic (butyric) acid, the smell of rancid butter
  • •Ginkgo and the cycads are the only seed plants with motile, flagellated sperm; Sakugoro Hirase described ginkgo's in 1896
  • •Assessed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List; wild populations survive only in a few sites in China
  • •Six ginkgos within about 2 km of the Hiroshima hypocentre survived the 1945 bomb and still grow; such trees are called hibakujumoku
  • •A ginkgo planted at Kew in 1762 is one of the garden's 'Old Lions', among the oldest trees there
  • •Ginkgo is not a conifer and not a flowering plant: it is a gymnosperm in a division all its own

Drill it — 8 cards

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Sources