- Ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba), also spelled gingko and known as the maidenhair tree, is a unique species of tree with no close living relatives. The ginkgo is a living fossil, as a unique species recognisably similar to fossils dating back 270 million years. Native to China, the tree is widely cultivated and introduced early in human history, and has various uses as a food and in traditional medicine.
Ginkgos are large trees, normally reaching a height of 20–35 m (66–115 feet), with some specimens in China being over 50 m (164 feet). The tree has an angular crown and long, somewhat erratic branches, and is usually deep rooted and resistant to wind and snow damage. Young trees are often tall and slender, and sparsely branched; the crown becomes broader as the tree ages. During autumn, the leaves turn a bright yellow, then fall, sometimes within a short space of time (one to 15 days). A combination of resistance to disease, insect-resistant wood and the ability to form aerial roots and sprouts makes ginkgos long-lived, with some specimens claimed to be more than 2,500 years old.
The leaves are unique among seed plants, being fan-shaped with veins radiating out into the leaf blade, sometimes bifurcating (splitting), but never anastomosing to form a network. Two veins enter the leaf blade at the base and fork repeatedly in two; this is known as dichotomous venation. The leaves are usually 5–10 cm (2-4 in), but sometimes up to 15 cm (6 in) long. The old popular name "maidenhair tree" is because the leaves resemble some of the pinnae of the maidenhair fern, Adiantum capillus-veneris.
Ginkgos are dioecious, with separate sexes, some trees being female and others being male.
Although Ginkgo biloba and other species of the genus were once widespread throughout the world, their range shrank until by two million years ago, it was restricted to a small area of China. For centuries, it was thought to be extinct in the wild.
The ginkgo is classified in its own division, the Ginkgophyta, comprising the single class Ginkgoopsida, order Ginkgoales, family Ginkgoaceae, genus Ginkgo and is the only extant species within this group. It is one of the best-known examples of a living fossil, because Ginkgoales other than G. biloba are not known from the fossil record after the Pliocene.
Ginkgo has long been cultivated in China; some planted trees at temples are believed to be over 1,500 years old. The first record of Europeans encountering it is in 1690 in Japanese temple gardens, where the tree was seen by the German botanist Engelbert Kaempfer. Because of its status in Buddhism and Confucianism, the ginkgo is also widely planted in Korea and parts of Japan; in both areas, some naturalization has occurred, with ginkgos seeding into natural forests.
Utrecht (The Netherlands) has the Ginkgo seen as one of the oldest trees outside China and Japan, planted between 1730-1767? as a young tree or grown from seed taken to Europe by VOC-ships from the Isle of Deshima (as a result of Kaempfers discovery of the Ginkgo).
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