Is there anything more satisfying than golden ginkgo leaves backed by blue autumn skies?

Ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba) delivers taxi-cab-yellow foliage to the Lower Midwest from the week of October 11 until mid-November, with most trees reaching peak color during the latter half of that period.  The margins of the fan-shaped leaves turn first, so that early in the show the green leaves are painted with a wide yellow border.  Eventually the canopy subsumes a uniform color–or does it?  Underneath a tree that has shed its leaves lies an assortment of fans in a surprisingly wide range of hues:  from buttermilk, to primrose, to traffic signal-amber yellow.

Whenever the word ginkgo is mentioned, the phrase “living fossil” never lags far behind—a nickname that originated with Darwin.  Ginkgo’s ancestors put down roots 270 million years ago–a good 200 million years before Tyrannosaurus rex ruled the land.  The modern form of ginkgo that we grow today, Ginkgo biloba, has been on the planet a “mere” 56 million years.  Until 7 million years ago, it grew here in North America; now wild native populations survive only in remote areas of China.