Ginkgo

Common Name: Ginkgo, China Maidenhair^[1]

Scientific Name: Ginkgo biloba

In 1806, William Hamilton wrote to Thomas Jefferson that he intended to send to him three trees that he thought Jefferson would "deem valuable additions" to his garden.^[2] Ginkgo biloba or the China Maidenhair tree was one of the trees listed. Hamilton went on to say that it produced a "good eatable nut."^[3]

The Gingko is a large, hardy, deciduous tree with delicate, fan-shaped leaves that turn bright yellow in fall, and it has been used medicinally for thousands of years. The female trees produce edible fruit.

Footnotes

1. ↑ This article is based on a Center for Historic Plants Information Sheet.
2. ↑ Betts, Garden Book, 321. Copy at the Library of Congress.
3. ↑ Quoted in Peggy Cornett, "Inspirations from the Woodlands Jefferson's abiding attachment to Philadelphia's Botanical Riches," Twinleaf, (2005), http://www.twinleaf.org/articles/philadelphia.html

Further Sources

• Betts, Edwin M., Hazlehurst Bolton Perkins, and Peter J. Hatch. Thomas Jefferson's Flower Garden at Monticello, 3rd ed. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1986
• Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants