A prehistoric tree that survives

The ginkgo, often called the Maidenhair Tree, is one of the prehistoric trees that still survives.  It is native to ancient China, but it also grew in the United States at one time a few million years ago

Ginkgo biloba  - Maidenhair Tree

The tree was sometimes used as a decorative tree along the avenues of the northeastern United States at the turn of the century.   The tree originated in China and Japan.  It has a nut with a smooth and thin shell.    Within the shell is a single green kernel that has a sweetish flavor.   When roasted the kernels are highly prized by the Chinese.

The fruit of the Ginkgo resembles the native persimmon in color, size, and character.   That means it has a red-orange color, is about the size of a very small fist, and resembles the persimmons with soft fleshy pulp.

When you smell a ginkgo, however, it is disagreeable and not liked.  This "stink" is what has stopped Americans from eating the ginkgo nut.  The term "stink to high heaven" may have come from this tree.

The ripe nuts are green or yellowish, oval in shape, and about an inch across.  They are borne singly on long stems from their leaf clusters.   They have a thin, foul outer flesh and a thin stony shell.  The inner kernel is fairly large.   

The ginkgo nut has no commercial value as an agricultural crop, although the nuts that fall are often gathered and sold in China and Japan.  There is no commercial crop.   It is a wild crop that is gathered.   Because of the litter and smell, female trees are rare in ornamental plantings....

In China the hulls fall off theginkgo tree  and the Chinese pick up the hulls, paint them a bright red, and  string them in chains for wedding decorations.  Then they crack the nuts and eat the contents, which seem to have no odor.

The ginkgo is called the Maidenhair Tree because it resembles a fanlike leaf that resembles the maidenhair fern.  There are two lobes on each leaf that are fanlike.

Near Ellensburg, Washington there is a petrified ginkgo forest.  This dates the trees as having been native to that area 15,000,000 years ago!.  That was before the Rocky Mountains were born.   That area was a rain forest at that time.  Today it is a desert plateau right near Vantage, Washington on a high, dry plateau overlooking the Columbia River.

When the earth opened up and belched lava, the molten flow blanketed the land where the forests had stood.  The trees were green and wet.  No oxygen was present to permit them to burn.   So they turned to stone.