While the band was setting up for the concert on the green, Mary Alice and I went for a walk. While admiring the old homes, we also noticed many round seed pods lying on the sidewalks. I picked up several of the pods, and I must have had a puzzled look on my face for a young man walking by stopped to tell me that the pods were from the ginkgo trees.
I looked up and saw the familiar leaves of a ginkgo tree.
The ginkgo tree is unique in that it is the only existing tree in its family. It is an old tree, with similar fossils found dating back 270 million years. It is native to China, where it is widely cultivated.
The ginkgo tree belongs to the Ginkgo biloba family. The scientific name ginkgo is the result of a spelling error that occurred three centuries ago. In Japan, ginkgo was spelled ginnam and pronounced ginkyo. Later, a Westerner, who was the first to investigate the fruit, wrote the word as it was pronounced.
The species name biloba is derived from two Latin words: bis meaning two and loba meaning lobed (referring to the shape of the leaves). In China, the name yinguo for the ginkgo tree means silver fruit, and in Japanese
and Vietnamese, the name means white fruit or silver apricot.
At the time the atom bomb was dropped in Japan all plants and animals in the area were destroyed except for six ginkgo trees, which, although charred, survived and returned to being healthy. Today, these trees are still alive.
The leaves of the ginkgo tree are fan-shaped, with veins radiating out into the leaf blades. An old popular name for the ginkgo tree is maidenhair tree, which is due to the leaves resembling the maidenhair fern.
The ginkgo trees have separate sexes, with male trees and females trees.
The seeds of the female are fleshy; light yellow-brown in color; soft and fruit like. The seeds contain butyric acid, which has an odor compared to both rancid butter and vomit. Although these seeds appear as apricot-like fruits, they are not. Each seed contains soft fleshy sections and hard sections.
For thousands of years, the Chinese have used all parts of the ginkgo tree in medicines. In the United States, ginkgo supplements are taken in the belief that the pills will improve memory; improve blood flow to the brain and also act as an antioxidant. Some studies have shown that by taking the pills a healthy person might have a memory boost, while other studies have not found any benefit from taking a ginkgo supplement.
Several studies have shown that it can help with memory problems caused by either dementia or Alzheimer’s disease; however, it does not seem to prevent dementia or Alzheimer’s.
The ginkgos are large trees, growing up to over 100 feet, and known for their hardiness of adapting well to urban environment, by tolerating pollution; confined spoil space and even surviving rock salt. The trees rarely suffer disease problems (even in urban conditions), and the wood
is attacked by few insects. The ginkgos are beautiful trees that also provide excellent shade. For these reasons, ginkgo trees have been widely planted along many city streets.
However, these ginkgo trees are being cut down (especially the female) in many cities because the fruit stinks and the offensive smell is not easily ignored.
To combat this odor in Washington D.C., the female ginkgo trees are annually sprayed to prevent the formation of the fruit. This helps to eliminate the offensive smell. While other cities have been cutting down the female ginkgo trees, leaving only the males, in order to solve the smelly problem. The planting of female ginkgo trees has been banned in some cities.
However, the ginkgos are fighting back. Occasionally, a male tree undergoes a metamorphosis and begins dropping the smelly fruit. These changes are rare and only occur about one in every one hundred trees.
The ginkgo tree is the national tree of China and the official tree of the Japanese Capitol of Tokyo. The symbol of Tokyo is a ginkgo leaf.