Ginkgo biloba

November 13, 2020November 5, 2021
Broadleaf tree, Flora and Fauna
by dhir

Last updated November 5, 2021. All photos taken by the author.

Large Ginkgo trees (centre and left) with golden fall foliage. A few weeks later a windstorm had stripped almost all leaves from the trees.

Ginkgo biloba is not native to our area, but it is relatively easy to find and identify. It is often referred to as a living fossil, like the coelacanth, because it appears unchanged from fossil specimens tens of millions of years old. Ginkgo trees belong to a family where all other species have gone extinct, known only by their fossilized remains such as these two Ginkgo dissecta, collected from the McAbee Fossil Beds in British Columbia perhaps 20 years ago when the public was permitted to remove fossils from the site.

The two fossils on a 1 inch grid. More information about this species can be found here.

The smaller fossil. The species name dissecta describes the deep lobes of these leaves.

The larger of the two fossils. Notice the parallel bifurcating veins. Bifurcation also occurs in your fingerprint ridges!

The leaves of Ginkgo biloba have one to many lobes, but the species name does mean “two-lobed”. Look for a fan shape with parallel veins all originating at the stem. If you look really carefully you can see that some veins split into two every so often resulting in dichotomous venation. At this time of year the leaves have started to change (or are fully changed) from bright green to yellow or gold.

Leaves from two different trees. Like differences between related people, there is individual variation between tree specimens. One tree had all leaves like on the right, very flat and triangular. The other tree had all leaves like on the left, curvy and three-dimensional (see next photo below).

Many of the leaves from this tree were rounded and full and did not lie flat.

A two-lobed leaf, which actually were rare around the four trees I looked at.

A many-lobed leaf but still with the identifying fan-shape and parallel veins.

The leaves of Ginkgo are attached in groups to short shoots on the branches. The tree I looked most closely at seemed to have four or more leaves per group.

Look near the top of the photo at the 5 leaves attached to the same spot. Also notice all of the lichen and moss on the branches.

Three leaves attached here, but there seems to be at least one leaf scar indicating that one or more leaves have already fallen from this shoot.

Another name for ginkgo is Maidenhair tree the leaf shape is similar to the maidenhair fern.

Ginkgo bark on a mature tree is beautiful with various colours and a rough texture.

Close up of the bark of the large tree from the first image.

A Ginkgo tree with only a few leaves remaining. These trees look awkward to me, with irregular lengths of branches and clumps of moss and lichen all over.

Ginkgo trees are dioecious, meaning male and female flowers occur on separate trees. Apparently the fruit are inedible, even poisonous, and the seeds can be eaten in small amounts only with proper preparation. One tree I looked at had decaying fruit under it. I did not attempt to smell them and I read later that they smell horrible. To learn more about ginkgo trees check out this interview with an expert.

Leaf, fruit, seed (also called a nut). The fruit was about 3-4 cm across.

As storms continue to blow the colour-changing leaves from our deciduous trees, get outside and find yourself a Ginkgo biloba tree with beautiful golden leaves and, if you’re (un)lucky, small golden fruit.

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Update November 5 2021:

Here’s a photo I took on October 15 2021 of the same tree from last year. The leaves are just starting to lose their green colouring, and it was very interesting to see that the leaves didn’t change colour tip to base or the entire leaf at the same time. The green is replaced with yellow in stripes!

Books I used:

“Gingko Biloba.” Vancouver Tree Book: a Living City Field Guide, by David Tracey, Pure Wave Media, 2016, pp. 96–97.

“Ginkgo.” Flora: over 20, 000 Plants and Their Cultivation Requirements, Firefly Books Ltd., 2003, pp. 638–639.