Missouri Botanical 
Garden Bulletin 
Vol. II St. Louis, Mo., October, 1914 No. 10 
THE MAIDENHAIR TREE 
Of the many trees which are worth while because of their 
beauty or usefulness, perhaps no single one is less known 
or appreciated than the so-called maidenhair tree (Ginkgo 
biloba). In St. Louis, where hardy shade trees which com- 
bine beauty with resistance to disease and smoke are so 
much desired, the ginkgo deserves careful consideration. 
Certainly it would be hard to find another tree which is so 
free from both insect and fungous pests, stands the climate 
so well, and is apparently so unaffected by poisonous gases 
which are fatal to some of our most satisfactory trees. Com- 
bining these necessary qualities with unusual beauty, it 
would seem that the maidenhair tree should be more widel 
used. The only possible objection is that the fruit—whic 
resembles a small yellow plum—is rich in butyric acid, and 
when ripe has an odor somewhat like that of rancid butter. 
So long as the fruit is on the tree, however, this odor is 
scarcely, if at all, noticeable, and if cleaned up soon after fall- 
ing, need cause no trouble. Furthermore, the tree does 
not fruit until it is from twenty-five to forty years of age. 
If only male trees are grown, there is of course no difficulty 
of this kind, but the impossibility of distinguishing the 
male from the female in young trees makes it probable 
that a percentage of fruit-bearing ginkgos will be included 
in any plantation. In China the seeds of the ginkgo, after 
roasting, are esteemed as a dessert nut, it being sup 
that the latter have some digestive property. 
Young maidenhair trees are tall and slender, resembling 
the Lombardy poplar in type, but later horizontal branches 
appear which ultimately cause the trees to assume the 
appearance of spreading oaks. Ginkgos in this country 
from fifty to seventy-five years old measure forty to sixty- 
five feet in height and have trunks with a girth of from 
five to ten feet. Wilson, in his “A Naturalist in Western 
China,” figures a tree of unknown age which is ninety feet 
tall and has a girth of twenty-four feet. 
In the Missouri Botanical Garden there are a aan” 
(119 
