Ginkgo trees are male or female: these methods teach you to tell the sexes apart
Many people don't quite understand that ginkgo trees are either male or female. In fact, many plants are dioecious, such as kiwifruit, spinach, and sago palm, and the ginkgo tree is also dioecious. So many people ask why their own ginkgo tree never bears fruit, and this is very likely because the ginkgo tree you planted is a male tree.
How to tell male from female ginkgo trees
Telling male from female ginkgo trees is actually rather complicated, and many more experienced growers can distinguish them. Still, through careful observation we can make out some differences. It is like telling twins apart after looking at them for a long time.
In fact, the biggest difference in ginkgo trees should be that male ginkgo trees are mainly used for timber, while female ginkgo trees are mainly used for medicinal purposes, because the ginkgo fruit, the ginkgo nut, is a very famous medicinal material.
Besides the most important difference, we can also find some rather subtle differences through the leaves of the two. For example, ginkgo leaves each have a cleft, and in male ginkgo trees this cleft is deeper, reaching about two-thirds of the leaf. The leaves of female ginkgo trees are much shorter, and generally only a small notch opens at the upper part of the leaf.
Then there is the tree shape: male ginkgo trees are mainly used for timber and generally grow taller, while female ginkgo trees are comparatively shorter.
The crown also differs slightly: the angle between the branches of male ginkgo trees is smaller, the branches are longer, and the foliage is dense, so the whole crown looks like a pagoda, staggered from top to bottom. Female ginkgo trees, however, have more spreading branches, the angle between the trunk and the branches is larger, and the tree is relatively rounded from top to bottom; seen from a distance the whole crown is fairly rounded, like a ball.
Of course, besides the several comparison methods above, there are many other ways to distinguish male from female ginkgo trees, but most of them rely on laboratory reagents and are not really suitable for everyday use.