Ginkgo biloba (Maidenhair tree)

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Ginkgo biloba L.

Maidenhair tree, golden fossil tree, stinkbomb tree

Kingdom	Plantae	Plants, but not fungi, lichens, or algae
Subkingdom	Tracheobionta	Vascular plants—plants with a “circulatory system” for delivering water and nutrients
Division	Ginkgophyta	A group of gymnosperms, with Gingko biloba the only living member
Class	Ginkgoopsida	A group of gymnosperms, with Gingko biloba the only living member
Order	Ginkgoales	A group of gymnosperms, with Gingko biloba the only living member
Family	Ginkgoaceae	A group of gymnosperms, with Gingko biloba the only living member
Genus	Ginkgo	Probably an English distortion of Middle Chinese characters meaning “silver apricot”
Species	biloba	From the Latin bis, “two,” and loba, “lobed,” for the leaf shape

About plant names...

Ginkgo biloba is native to China. It has become naturalized in a few places in eastern North America, but it borders on extinction everywhere. Natural trees live as long as 2,500 years. Cultivated varieties are often included in landscape plantings, and it is also cultivated for its alleged medicinal properties. Gingkos are a very very old species: fossilized leaves date back 270 million years, before even the first dinosaurs!

Plants: Trees are 40-80' (12-24 m), rarely as much as 128' (39 m), with an oval to cone-shaped crown.

Leaves: Leaves are more or less fan-shaped, sometimes resembling crescents, usually with one lobe, sometimes divided into two; leaf edges are softly scalloped. Leaves are medium green; in the fall, they turn bright yellow.

Flowers: These trees are dioecious: male and female flowers are borne on separate trees. Male flowers are small greenish conelike structures about 1" (2.5 cm) × ¼" (6.3 mm). Female trees produce ovules—inconspicuous rounded green bumps about ⅛" (3.2 mm) in diameter—at the ends of stalks.

Fruits: Fruits are roughly oval-shaped, up to 1" (2.5 cm) long, hanging on long stems. They are produced in large quantities, and smell unpleasant (like "rancid butter") as they rot, hence the name "stinkbomb tree."

Medical: Ginkgo biloba is frequently touted as a dietary supplement with curative or preventative properties. It is best known for memory enhancement and slowing the progress of dementia and Alzheimer's disease. However, ginkgo has, at best, slight benefits in memory enhancement—many studies found no improvement at all. And in 2008, the GEM study, involving 3,000 elderly participants, found it to have no benefit whatsoever in arresting the progress of dementia or Alzheimer's. Ginkgo has also been used for glaucoma, macular degeneration, tinnitus, and Raynaud's phenomenon, and many other ailments. No large scale studies have been performed for the first three of these, but a well-designed study did find a benefit for Raynaud's sufferers.

Online References:

Wikipedia

The Ohio State University PLANTFacts database

The University of Connecticut Plant Database

The Gymnosperm Database

The University of California Museum of Paleontology

The University of Maryland Medical Center

The Virginia Tech Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation

References:

Sibley, David Allen, The Sibley Guide to Trees, Alfred A. Knopf, 2009, p. 80

10/5/2010 · Susan and Raimond’s, Phoenix, Maryland
≈ 6 × 4" (15 × 10 cm)

This mature ginkgo, planted in the heart of Boston, was thriving. I haven’t previously seen them in Massachusetts. · 7/29/2023 · Beth Israel Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts

Ginkgo biloba description by Thomas H. Kent, last updated 25 May 2020.