[The doyen of trees: the Ginkgo biloba]

The Ginkgo biloba tree is the sole representative of a once flourishing botanical division, that of the so-called ginkgophytes. It is in fact a living fossil, the most ancient of all trees, and this claim to fame is accompanied by numerous peculiarities as diverse as its reproduction cycle (it scatters neither seeds nor spores but ovules), its extraordinary resistance to pollution, viruses and fungi, or again its extremely original biochemistry; in particular, Ginkgo biloba leaves countain specific terpens namely bilobalide and ginkgolides.