A 1400 year old ginko biloba that blankets its temple courtyard in golden leaves every fall.
Out of a forest of notable trees, the Gu Guanyin Ginko is perhaps the most photogenic. It went viral for the first time in 2016, and every year since, like clockwork, its image circulates on social media around the end of October. Hard to blame anyone for that– it is a stunning tree, towering, rooted in a yellow ocean.
Ginko trees are living fossils– relics of another age. While the family was widespread in the Jurassic and Cretaceous, now only one species, the ginko biloba, remains. It is the only member of its genus, which is the only genus in its family, which is the only family in its order, which is the only order in its subclass. Unique, and alone.
While remains of ginko are found practically everywhere in the fossil record, over the last 270 million years its natural range has shrunk to only a few valleys in China. Even these so-called wild trees show remarkable genetic uniformity, pointing to a possibility of human cultivation. It is possible that there are no truly wild ginkos left– that their survival into the now was predicated on human involvement.
Regardless, their resurgence is certainly human. Tenacious, adapting well to pollution and urban environments, they are used widely as street trees and have naturalized to the extent that some consider them pests. If you live in a city with planted female ginkos, you certainly know their slimy fall fruits (complete with the notable odor of dog shit)– or if your city elected to go with male trees, you may know them for the allergenic pollen. Ginko nuts and leaves are edible (though not in large amounts– they contain a unique, compounding neurotoxin) and the tree is used in herbalism as well as simply in snacks. It serves a religious role both in Buddhism and Confucianism.
The Gu Guanyin Ginko is said to have been planted by the Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty in the 600s. True or not, the tree has been making an ocean of a courtyard in the Zhongnan Mountains for over 1400 years.