Beeches, chestnuts, and oaks are all members of the Oak Family 
(Fagaceae). Similarities in the leaves help reveal the kinship of these trees, 
but more revealing are the caps or coverings of the nuts: the cap on an 
acorn, the spiny sheath covering a chestnut, and the bristly cover on a 
beech nut. A glance shows differences while a close look reveals funda- 
mental similarities. 
Fagus is the ancient Latin name for the European beech. 
Sylvatica means “ of the forest”. 
See Map: J 
Although at first glance Ginkgo biloba 
appears to resemble other broadleaf trees, 
it is one of a kind. The species has unique 
fan-shaped leaves, and there are no 
flowers, fruits, or cones. The fruitlike 
globes on female ginkgoes are bare seeds. 
The species stands alone in these features 
because it represents an evolutionary line 
much older than and distinct from that of 
the flowering plants, the group to which 
almost all other broadleaf trees belong. 
Winter Summer Ginkgoes and their extinct relatives 
originated perhaps 280 million years ago, 
approximately at the time of the earliest-known fossil insects and long 
ahead of the earliest-known mammals and birds. They flourished around 
the world before the oldest flowering plant fossils were deposited some 
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