Ginkgo tree 'flowering'

I love Ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba) trees, there is something miraculous about them.  

My neighbours went away and asked my kids to look after their cat while they are gone.  They have a ginkgo tree which I like to look at when ever I go over there.  This is a male ginkgo tree.  

It is breaking dormancy and producing cute little ginkgo leaves as well as small catkin like things that will produce pollen (that's how I can tell it is a male tree).  

Male ginkgo tree breaking dormancy

Ginkgo trees are pretty amazing.  This ginkgo tree is relatively young.  I am told it takes upwards of 20 years for them to 'flower'.  This tree may be 20+ years old, or it may be an older tree grafted onto a younger rootstock.  People tend to want male ginkgo trees because the fruit can smell bad. 

Ginkgo trees live for a very long time, some are documented to be alive over 1,400 years old and the largest ginkgo are estimated to be over 3,500 years old.  The trees almost seem to melt as they get really old, yet paradoxically the tree does not appear to show cell degeneration / senescence as they age.  Some have survived atomic bombings (I almost got a seed from one of these trees, but missed out) with minimal damage.  

Some individual ginkgo trees are male, while others are female.  They produce seeds, yet are not flowering plants.  I would mention the pollen, as it is unique among plants, but decided not to as the topic is a bit gross.  

Ginkgo biloba breaking dormancy

Ginkgo with catkin like structures

Ginkgo catkins can be relatively long

In autumn ginkgo trees drop leaves almost all at once, it is incredible to watch as 80% of the leaves fall while I am standing there.  The colour in the growing season is green while autumn colour is a golden yellow, if you dry an autumn leaf it stays yellow, and if you dry a growing leaf it stays green.  These plants are heterophyllous, meaning they produce two different types of leaves.

Ginkgo produce a seed inside what looks like fruit, but is actually the fleshy layer of the seed.  This fleshy part smells pretty bad and can cause contact dermatitis.  The embryo develops inside the seed, either before or after it falls from the tree, so you can't know if a seed is successfully 'pollinated' until you plant it or crack it open.  

Ginkgo seeds are edible, and taste pretty good.  People used to carry bags of seed to eat on their journeys (you will see why this point is important lower down this page).  

Young ginkgo tree

Ginkgo

If all of that wasn't enough, Ginkgo once had numerous species, all but one are now extinct.  Ginkgo biloba is described as a 'living fossil' or a 'Lazarus species'.  

Interestingly, Ginkgo was rather abundant in fossils, and it disappeared from the fossil record in the Pliocene era.  Given that these trees can survive to be well over 1,000 years old, these trees are alive today, these shed pollen to the wind, and being deciduous they drop many leaves each year, it is remarkable how it is absent in the more recent fossil record.  Ginkgo biloba was thought to be extinct until some trees were found growing near temples.  

Ginkgo was thought to be extinct in the wild until the early 1900s when a few populations were discovered in China.  It is now thought that these wild populations are not from wild grown populations, but are from seeds that were carried by people who were planning on eating them, which means these are more like garden escapees rather than remnant wild populations.

Ginkgo is unique and bizarre in so many ways.  Mostly I love the looks of the leaves.  They are shaped like cute little duck feet, and are similar in shape to pinnules of maidenhair ferns.  

The only things I dislike about ginkgo trees, is how slowly they grow and how difficult I find to propagate them.  They probably can grow fast under the right conditions, but under normal conditions they tend to grow slowly.

I will probably never sell ginkgo trees.  I find them difficult to propagate using cuttings.  This is unfortunate because I would love to grow dozens of ginkgo trees for sale each year, but this won't happen unless something changes and I work out how to reliably grow them from cuttings.