A few weeks ago, I saw one of fall’s greatest shows: the dropping of the ginkgo leaves. It happened during my morning “commute” on a remote workday, when I was walking around my backyard trying to mentally prepare myself to spend most of the day in virtual meetings.
It was a relief to be outside, away from my computer, watching the golden ginkgo leaves fall to the ground. It was almost magical. The scene transported me to a time when my kids were little, and I pictured them running around under the trees, shouting, “the leaves are leaving!”
Years ago, when we moved into our suburban house, I wasn’t thrilled by the sight of the ginkgo trees in the backyard. I was all too familiar with the foul-smelling, slimy seeds that littered the streets in the city, where we’d previously lived. How many of our new trees would produce seeds?
It turns out that two of them do, but the stench is a small price to pay for the spectacular display we get each year. In late October, seemingly overnight, the fan-shaped leaves change from green to yellow. Then, at some point in November, the leaves fall to the ground within the space of a few hours. Why does this happen?
According to Peter Crane, the author of Ginkgo: The Tree that Time Forgot:
Ginkgo has the most synchronized leaf drop of any tree I know. In a general way we understand how trees shed their leaves. It happens because of changes in a layer of cells right at the point where the stalk attaches to the branch. Ultimately, these cells die, the walls between them separate, and the leaf falls, but exactly how this happens and why, in ginkgo, it happens with eerie synchronicity, no one knows (Chapter 4).
The sight of the ginkgo leaves “leaving” in my backyard reminded me of Crane’s book, which I read for the first time a couple of years ago. It’s an interesting and detailed account of the evolutionary history, biology, and cultural significance of the ginkgo.
Ginkgos are trees with personality, and it’s been a pleasure to get to know mine over the last 15 years. I’ve watched them grow, leaf out, change color, drop their seeds, and lose their leaves, processes that have changed over time. The leaves turn yellow later in the year now than they did when I moved in, and other ginkgo watchers have noticed that the timing of the leaf drop is moving later too.
Crane notes how “trees help calibrate the speed of current environmental change: they provide a context more in tune with the tempo of the Earth. They slow us down, they teach us the virtue of patience, and they remind us to think about all that has gone before and what is to come.”
Almost unchanged for 200 million years, the ginkgo is a resilient tree that has survived multiple mass extinctions and has thrived alongside people. Crane writes, “Ginkgo now grows all around the world, but almost everywhere it has been brought there by people; for most of us ginkgo is a plant of parks, gardens, or city streets, all human-created habitat.”
Crane calls it a “good news story: a tree that people saved,” largely for the nutritional value of its nuts and the aesthetic value of its leaves, among other reasons.
But the ginkgo isn’t only telling us good news. The rising temperatures that cause the changes we see in the leaves are wreaking havoc across the world. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:
Human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse gases, have unequivocally caused global warming… Human-caused climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe. This has led to widespread adverse impacts on food and water security, human health and on economies and society and related losses and damages to nature and people… Vulnerable communities who have historically contributed the least to current climate change are disproportionately affected (Synthesis Report, Section 2).
For those of us who are privileged enough to live in places that have escaped the worst effects of climate change (so far), the ginkgo trees serve as a reminder that this crisis touches us all.
The ginkgo’s fall show is more than entertainment. It’s a warning.
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Citations:
Peter Crane, Ginkgo: The Tree that Time Forgot (2013)
IPCC, Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Core Writing Team, H. Lee and J. Romero (eds.)].
Robinson Meyer, The Great Ginkgo Leaf Dump is Here, The Atlantic, Nov. 10, 2017.
The Misfortune Of Knowing 
I’m never sure how to feel when I read posts about climate change. I feel like I’m personally doing everything I can to leave a small footprint, but I also don’t want to bury my head in the sand when it comes to being reminded about climate change. On the other hand, once I have more info, reduce my impact, vote for people who acknowledge climate change, and write incessantly to my school about reducing paper waste, turning off lights, etc, what else do I do? A psychology professor once told me that our brains were not designed to have and process as much global information as we now do.
So glad to see you back! Loved your post and the video! Ginkgos are such amazing trees. The cross street at the end of my block is a “ginkgo street,” the city when replacing elms and other dead trees just planted ginkgos. There are lots of them all around the Twin Cities. And the most amazing part is, not only do all the trees on one street drop their leaves at once, but all the trees across the Twin Cities drop their leaves at once. Trees are so awesome!
Welcome back AMB, hope you + family are well. What a remarkable plant – I read it is native to the Far East but was introduced to Europe and the Americas a couple of centuries ago. Trees in general are remarkable – we have recently lost thousands here in Jersey (CI) when a storm ripped through.
Of course I was there a very long time ago, but I loved it and loved Montreal. Going there certainly changed my life; I became Canadian! Deciding where to go to school is big. Take care; don’t let yourself be TOO busy. 😊
Gosh, it’s good to see you back on your blog, AMB. I miss your voice. And it’s nice to be reminded of the gingko tree. I have never knowingly been aware of their existence growing up (on Ling Island), but there’s a beloved one front and center on the McGill campus. Every sad thing you say about the unwillingness of the world leaders to do what’s truly needed to minimize climate change is true. The mindset is unfathomable to me. I hope you are well and won’t be a stranger to blogging. 😊
Hi Jane! It is so nice to hear from you. Thank you for the kind words. I hadn’t intended my hiatus from blogging to go on for as long as it did, but life has just been too busy. My interests have also changed since I started this blog over ten years ago. I don’t know when my next post will be, but I will try to blog more often. It’s lovely to hear about the tree on McGill’s campus. My kids are interested in looking at McGill for college (my twins are 10th graders now!). If we end up visiting the campus, I will keep my eye out for that tree!