Important: Safety Warning
This page states that certain wild plants are safe to eat. Its identifications and edibility claims are more than a century old and in some cases simply wrong, and deadly look-alikes exist for many edible species. Never eat a wild plant on the strength of this text.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
Ginkgo
(the Japanese name). Maidenhair-tree. SYNS. Salisburia, Pterophyllus. ORD. Coniferae. A monotypic genus, the species being a fine deciduous tree. It thrives thoroughly well in almost any garden soil in the South of England, but in the North requires the shelter of a wall. In some parts of France, it fruits freely. Propagated by imported seeds.
G. biloba (two-lobed).* fl. dioecious; male catkins slender, stalked; females in pairs, or solitary, on long footstalks. Spring. fr. edible, sweet, not produced until the tree has attained some size. l. three to five, handsome, fan-shaped, cloven about half-way from their summit, irregularly notched, thickened at the margin, smooth, striated on each side with numerous parallel nerves. Branches verticillate. h. 60ft. to 80ft. Northern China, 1754. (W. D. B. 168.) There are several forms of this handsome and interesting tree in the nurseries: laciniata has the leaves more deeply cut than usual; pendula is of weeping habit; and varie-gata has variegated foliage, but the colouring is not very marked.