China — Ginkgo · Endurance
The bomb took the city. Six scorched ginkgos budded that spring anyway.
In 1945, six ginkgo trees were growing within one to two kilometres of the atomic blast at Hiroshima. Almost all other plant and animal life around them was instantly destroyed. The trees survived, sprouted fresh buds the following spring, and are still alive today.
The same unchanged genetics that make the ginkgo an orphan also make it nearly untouchable. It carries near-immunity to pests, fungal diseases, and modern urban pollution — sulfur dioxide, ozone, the whole chemistry of a city street.
A single tree can easily live a thousand years. The oldest known living specimens in China are estimated at over 3,500 years old — trees that were already ancient when the first emperors were young.
Endurance has one indignity. Female trees produce fleshy seeds containing butyric acid — the exact compound behind the smell of rancid butter and human vomit. The stench is so overpowering that urban planners and nurseries almost exclusively plant cloned male trees along city streets.