Ginkgo biloba Linnaeus, 1771 - maidenhair tree in Ohio, USA. (fall 2014; photo by Mary Ellen St. John)

Plants are multicellular, photosynthesizing eucaryotes. Most species occupy terrestrial environments, but they also occur in freshwater and saltwater aquatic environments. The oldest known land plants in the fossil record are Ordovician to Silurian. Land plant body fossils are known in Silurian sedimentary rocks - they are small and simple plants (e.g., Cooksonia). Fossil root traces in paleosol horizons are known in the Ordovician. During the Devonian, the first trees and forests appeared. Earth's initial forestation event occurred during the Middle to Late Paleozoic. Earth's continents have been partly to mostly covered with forests ever since the Late Devonian. Occasional mass extinction events temporarily removed much of Earth's plant ecosystems - this occurred at the Permian-Triassic boundary (251 million years ago) and the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary (65 million years ago).

The most conspicuous group of living plants is the angiosperms, the flowering plants. They first unambiguously appeared in the fossil record during the Cretaceous. They quickly dominated Earth's terrestrial ecosystems, and have dominated ever since. This domination was due to the evolutionary success of flowers, which are structures that greatly aid angiosperm reproduction.

Ginkgos do not produce flowers and thus are not angiosperms. Ginkgos are represented by only one living species in the Holocene, but have a fossil record extending back into the Mesozoic and even the Permian. The natural distribution of the living species, Ginkgo biloba, is a few localities in China. It has been extensively cultivated as an ornamental tree and can be found throughout the world. The leaves are fan shaped and can be bilobed. Fall colors are an intense, deep yellow.

Classification: Plantae, Ginkgophyta, Ginkgoopsida, Ginkgoales, Ginkgoaceae

Locality: neighborhood at the intersection of Mt. Vernon Road and Fairfield Street in Newark, Licking County, east-central Ohio, USA

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