8 November 2024

In Pittsburgh this week the ginkgo trees (Ginkgo biloba) began to drop their leaves. I found a cheerful yellow carpet under gray skies on Wednesday.

Other trees lose their leaves gradually or in the wind, but ginkgos can drop them all at once on a single day of calm weather. I tried to capture the “snowing” leaves in this 2017 video. Not very many.

@MyDailyNature does a better job of showing them fall including slow motion.

Get out soon to watch the ginkgos before the leaves are gone.

p.s. Did you know that gingkos are living fossils? Here’s more:

Native to East Asia, Ginkgo biloba is the last living species in the order Ginkgoales, which first appeared over 290 million years ago. Fossils very similar to the living species, belonging to the genus Ginkgo, extend back to the Middle Jurassic epoch approximately 170 million years ago. The tree was cultivated early in human history and remains commonly planted, and is widely regarded as a living fossil.

— Wikipedia: Ginkgo bilboa account