We've been looking for a theme in the house, without much success. Salmon, dragonflies, reeds, etc; something that would fit in with the Craftsman look. When we bought a small sconce for the mudroom, above Nancy's desk, we picked out one with a Ginkgo on it. Didn't give it much thought, just liked it. Then the other day at Four Corners Nursery (the Gardens at Four Corners, Port Hadlock), we picked out a few more trees and one was a darling little (5 ft) Ginkgo Bilboa. Yesterday it took root near the entrance to our house, where we can see it from the kitchen and the sun room. Looks good, and perhaps it is the second item of a theme for the house.
SO WHY IS THE GINKGO SO SPECIAL TO US. Remember, Michael is a paleogeologist, i.e., a living fossil.
(The following was abstracted from Wikipedia)
Ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba; also spelled gingko) also known as the Maidenhair Tree is a unique species of tree with no close living relatives. The ginkgo is classified in its own division, the Ginkgophyta. Other plant divisions contain hundreds of plant species, such as the conifers (division Pinophyta with 630 living species).
The genus Ginkgo is the ONLY extant species within the Ginkgophyta. It is one of the best-known examples of a living fossil, because Ginkgos other than G. biloba are not known from the fossil record after the Pliocene (2-5 million years ago). The first Gingko fossils appear in the Permian, dating back 270 Ma. (Photo is of Ginkgo biloba fossil from the Eocene, collected at MacAbee, B.C., Canada). If you are a creationist, then this fossil was put in a rock in MacAbee just to confuse everyone. Go figure.
