Ginkgo, our friend

Ginkgo, the tree which came to earth in the Jurassic period and never left, can, according to herbalism, help us think more clearly and live longer.

A flight of ginkgo butterflies...

For thinking clearly, use green leaves, and for living longer, pick them as they start to yellow at the end of October.  Which is just what I've been doing, as we have a small ginkgo tree (probably a dwarf) in our garden.  I really like the fact I can gather leaves which would fall anyway, without harming the tree.   JC took a few green leaves earlier in the year,  I hope he asked nicely.   The green leaves are higher in ginkgolides  for the brain, the yellow leaves higher in bioflavinoids for anitoxident anti-aging effects.

I've realised that it has beautiful butterfly leaves.  Each has an inclusion, partially divided in two, rather like the brain.  We dry the leaves and add them to our herbal tea brews.  If you need something stronger, you can buy full potency extracts.

Ginkgo leaf spreads its wings

Moth leaf

It can also help with boosting immunity, PMS, diabetes, preserving vision, tinitus, impotence, skin aging, cancer prevention and unclogging your arteries...

One clinical trial failed to show that Ginkgo had any effect on the development of Alzheimers http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laneur/article/PIIS1474-4422(12)70206-5/abstract
This study has lead some scientists and journalists to claim that people who take ginkgo are irrational.    Human health and human sickness is a multi-faceted thing and we don't yet understand that much about it in whole human terms.  I'm wondering whether we should avoid thinking of plant friends as wonder drugs and testing their componant chemicals on passive subjects.  All good food sustains life and maintains health, but we don't damn it because it isn't tested and proved to be a wonder drug.  And here's a funny thing: conventional drugs are tested using a placebo, to see whether the drug is more effective than a sugar pill.  BUT, if the drug, or the sugar pill, is given to the subject with love, or white-coat authority, it will be more effective.  I think there is something more going on than the "efficacy" (drug testing word) of the chemical component on controlled subjects when it comes to medicine, even conventional medicine.

For more about Ginkgo, try "Ginkgo the smart herb" by Jonathan Zuess, Three Rivers Press