Warming Circulation™

Ginkgo is a large slow-growing, deciduous tree that can reach approximately 98 feet (30 meters) tall by 29 feet (9 meters) wide.⁵ The tree has an angular crown at its top.⁵ Bark is gray to gray-brown with grooves that become deeper as the tree ages and elliptic leaf scars.^4,6 Branches are erratic.⁵ Leaves turn yellow in fall and are alternately placed or in clusters of three to five.^4,6 Long petiolates protrude from the bi-lobed and fan-shaped simple leaves that are darker on the surface and lighter on the underside.^4,5,6 Male tree staminate cones have naked anthers and are grouped in catkin-like clusters.⁶ Female pistillate cones have elongated and slim, fused stalks that fruit one naked ovule that forms into two seeds when fertilized.⁶ Seeds are ellipsoid or obovoid with two (female) or three (male) longitudinal ridges.⁵ When matured, the drupe-like cones turn yellow with a fleshy seedcoat layer and hard middle layer with a thin-shelled edible white seed.^3,4,6

This deciduous woody shrub has mostly unbranched stems that grow approximately 10 to 20 feet (4 to 6 meters).^2,4,6 The young stems are covered with flexible prickles, while the older stems are mostly smooth.² The leaves are palmately compound with five leaflets that are elliptical with a serrated margin that are often attached to the stem by reddish petioles.² Flowers are small, multiple, and umbelliferous; attached by long peduncles at the end of stems.² Fruit is a drupe with multiple kernels.² The root is a cylindrical dark brown taproot that is sometimes branched with a smooth exterior and a thin bark about 0.5 cm in diameter.² The rhizome is pale brown, up to 4 cm thick, wrinkled lengthwise, and shows the root scars with aerial stem traces and a pale yellow interior.²

Ginger is an herbaceous perennial herb, growing up to approximately 5 feet (1.5 meters) in height.⁴ Its alternate lance-shaped narrow leaves are sheathed to the stem and grow upwards.⁴ Flower stems are shorter than leaf stems and have an egg-shaped tip with dense, large yellow-green bracts surrounding the tip.⁴ The orange-yellow petals of the flower have a purplish tubular inner structure.^3,4 The cone flowers are scarce in a spike formation originating from a small thin bract within the larger bract.^4,5 Its capsule fruit has tiny arillate seeds.⁴ The underground part is a horizontal rhizome that branches out resembling the fingers of a hand.⁴ The thin skin of the rhizome is a tan color with a yellow fibrous interior.⁴