SCIENTIFIC NAME: Ginkgo biloba

COMMON NAME: ginkgo, maidenhair tree

LEAVES: Fan-shaped with dichotomous venation. Grow from spurs. Alternate. Super yellow fall color.

FRUIT: 1" diameter fruit that is a yellowish color. Matures in the fall. When crushed is very malodorous causing it to be inconceivable that female trees would be used in the landscape.

BARK: Gray and shallowly ridge and furrowed.

OTHER: Grows 60' to 90' tall. Female has fruit that is very bad smelling. Only use male trees and only buy from nurseries that guarantee trees are male. Slow growing tree when young with a high tolerance for nearly all growing conditions. Good city tree. Monotypic as to order, family, genus and species. Ginkgos don't fruit until after tree is 20 years old. A member of the Ginkgoaceae family. There are several cultivars of male trees available. Perhaps the most spectacular ginkgo can be found at Beaumont Tower on the Michigan State University campus. It must be 80' tall and the yellow fall color would stop you in your tracks. Downtown Montgomery, AL make the mistake several years ago of planting ginkgos for a street tree without knowing their gender. Now when these females fruit you need a gas mask to walk downtown in the fall. An important lesson was learned the hard way.