Ginkgo tree

I previously wrote about the Giant Sequoia tree growing in the park near our home in Orem, Utah. There's another tree near it, equally fascinating in a different way.

This tree is sometimes called a "living fossil." Trees in the order Ginkgoales are believed to have existed since 290 million years ago, and fossils from the Ginkgo genus that are almost identical to the modern tree (see the one I own in the photos) with the distinctive fan-shaped leaves date back to the Middle Jurassic age, approximately 170 million years ago. This single species, the "Ginkgo biloba", is the only one that survives today from that ancient group.

Even though Ginkgo trees were once very common based on the extensive fossil record, their distribution shrank and the tree was actually considered to be extinct in the wild, until it was rediscovered growing in two limited areas in eastern China. But it had been cultivated and preserved in southern China for centuries; it has been established in Europe for some 300 years and in North America for 200.

One astonishing example of the tenacity of the tree is that six Ginkgos growing in Hiroshima in 1945, between 1/2 and 1 mile from the center location where the atomic bomb was dropped, were among the few living things to survive the devastation. Though charred and dried, they soon recovered and remain healthy to this day.

Some of us, getting on in years a bit, are occasionally called "living fossils" too. But this tree truly is remarkable. It's fascinating to me to acknowledge things with a heritage that is expressed in hundreds of millions of years. How do you even conceive of periods like that? Our earth is full of truly remarkable things.

There were some Ginkgo trees growing near the administration building at BYU that I probably walked by a hundred times over many years, not recognizing what they were. I think they were the first actual Ginkgos I recognized after learning the story of the tree. Isn't it interesting how many things we walk by without noticing, unaware of their uniqueness or significance?

I #GiveThanks for the wonders of nature and for the process of discovery that comes as we experience the world as we strive to keep our eyes, and our minds, open.