Perhaps everyone has tired of pretty leaf pictures, but I decided to chance it and post three snaps of a ginko tree.

The ginko doesn’t leap to mind as a go-to for autumn foliage.

It seems like a lot of years, the leaves just turn yellowish-brown and drop to the ground.

But this year I’ve seen a number of them putting on a spectacular golden show.

I’m always pleased to spot one of these, they’ve got all sorts of positive associations.

It’s nice to see something that’s survived for over two hundred million years.

Dinosaurs of the Jurassic, like one of my favorites, the brachiosaurus, could graze on them.

When Frank Lloyd Wright built his first home (in Oak Park, Illinois) he selected the property because there were beautiful ginko trees planted there.

I’ve seen the leaves countless times in artwork from Asia, especially Japan and read that the trees are treated as sacred at Shinto shrines.

Old arboretums in the eastern states of our country inevitably have specimens, some planted in the first years of the republic.

It’s cool for our republic to have these “living fossils” around, like most of our political leadership.

And as an “herbal supplement,” it’s supposed to remedy insufficient blood flow to the brain.

That problem seems to be pervasive right now during the political races, so there’s another good reason to keep these ancient trees in circulation.