Every other species in the ginkgo's order is a fossil. Ginkgo biloba is the one that is still here, largely unchanged since before flowering trees existed, which is why botanists reach for the phrase living fossil every time one turns up in a park. This one has stood in Parc de Mon Repos for about 160 years. It is 25 metres tall now, with a trunk 3.70 metres round, and it was already worth recording in 1912, when Henri Badoux catalogued the notable trees of the canton and listed it along with the giant sequoia growing a short walk away in the same park. The French name for the species is l'arbre aux quarante ecus, and that is what Lausanne calls this tree. The city's own record adds that it inspired the novelist Bernard Clavel. Come in early November. Ginkgo leaves are flat fans, split down the middle and lacking any central rib, and they turn gold across the whole crown within days of each other, then drop almost in one go. Both the city and Lausanne Tourisme name that fortnight as the point of coming to see this particular tree. It grows behind the Campagne de Mon-Repos mansion, which once housed the International Olympic Committee. The park is free and a short walk from the main station.
From people who stood here
No notes yet
Did you visit the tree? Leave a note for the next visitor.
Getting there
Parc de Mon Repos, behind the Campagne de Mon-Repos mansion
You can recognise it by the leaves, flat fans split down the middle that nothing else in the park has, and by the gold they all turn in early November. It stands behind the Mon-Repos mansion, near the park's giant sequoia.
Free. Public historic park in central Lausanne, same park as the already-published Giant Sequoia (lsn_002).
Central Lausanne, a short walk from Lausanne-Gare (main train station).
Autumn colour
early November, when the whole crown goes gold at once and then drops
The line is our estimate of how much there is to see, not a measurement. Typical for this species where this tree stands; exact weeks shift with the year.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from. The story was written with AI from these sources, and readers who know the tree correct it.