Ginkgo Biloba
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DESCRIPTION
Medicinal Parts: The medicinal parts are the fresh or dried leaves, and the seeds separated from their fleshy outer layer.
Flower and Fruit: The tree flowers for the first time when it is between 20 and 30 years old. The flowers are dioecious. They are in the axils of the lower leaves of the current year’s short shoots. The male flowering parts are attached to short catkins. The female flowers have longer pedicles and are at the end of a leafless branch. Fertilization occurs months after pollination by spermatozoids, although usually only one ovule is fully formed. The light green or yellowish seeds, incorrectly called fruit, later become fleshy and plumlike. They have a diameter of 2.5 to 3 cm, and each contains a two-edged edible nut.
Leaves, Stem, and Root: Ginkgo biloba is a 30- to 40-m high dioecious tree with a girth of about 4 m. The trees can live for hundreds of years. The bark is light to dark brown with rough grooves and reticulate fissures. The leaves are fan-shaped with bifurcated ribs. They are fresh green to golden yellow in autumn. The female trees are pointed and pyramid-shaped; the male trees are broad and sparer.
Characteristics: The seeds smell like butyric, capric, or valeric acid when ripe.
Habitat: Ginkgo is indigenous to China, Japan and Korea, and is also found in Europe and the U.S.
Production: The leaves are harvested either mechanically or by hand from plantations or in the wild. The leaves are then dried and pressed into balls. A dry extract from the dried leaf of Ginkgo biloba is manufactured using acetone/water and subsequent purification steps without addition of concentrates or isolated ingredients.
Other Names: Maidenhair-Tree