Gingko

The Gingko (Ginkgo biloba), also known as the “maidenhair tree”, is a unique species of tree originally from China, with no close sister species. A living fossil, recognised as dating back 270 million years, the tree is mentioned early in human history as widely cultivated. It has culinary and medicinal traditional uses. The combination of its resistance to diseases and insects, its ability to form aerial roots and sprouts, are responsible for gingko’s longevity. Some specimens are reputed to be more than 2500 years old. The species retains a prodigious capacity for vegetative growth in difficult conditions. An extreme example of the ginkgo’s tenacity is in Hiroshima, Japan, where six trees growing between 1 and 2 km from the 1945 atomic bomb explosion site were among the few living things in the area to survive the blast. While almost all other plants and animals in the area were destroyed, the gingko trees, though charred, survived and were soon healthy again. The trees are alive to this day. Gingko trees are dioecious, with separate sexes; some trees are female, others male. In the fall, its leaves turn a bright yellow.