A ginkgo biloba raised from seed in Geelong's botanic gardens has been crowned Victoria's tree of the year.
The National Trust of Australia (Victoria), which runs the awards, announced on Tuesday that the Geelong ginkgo had beaten eight other finalists to the 2026 title, taking 27 per cent of the 4,435 public votes cast. Second place went to the smooth bark apple myrtle in Prahran, and Apollo Bay's myrtle beech was voted third.
To be eligible, a tree must be listed on the National Trust significant tree register, which recognises 2,500 trees in Victoria for their cultural, scientific and historic value. More than 40 were nominated this year, then narrowed to nine by a panel of 12 experts and arboriculturists.
The winner was planted in 1859, two decades after the township of Geelong was formally established. The seeds were transported from China and are rumoured to have been delivered by a ship's captain making a stop at Geelong's port.
At 20 metres, it is the largest ginkgo biloba in the state and possibly in Australia.
"It's a really special tree, and very well loved in that area," said Justin Buckley, the executive manager of gardens and landscapes at National Trust Victoria, who called it a "very popular winner".
The tree has distinctive stalactite-like growths hanging from its trunk and branches, a feature that appears only on older female ginkgos. "They're a real botanical oddity, I guess you could call them a living fossil," Mr Buckley told ABC Radio Melbourne. "It's got these amazing growths developing out of the trunk and the branches which sort of look like stalactites … and normally you don't see them except on trees that are much, much older."
Generations of botanic garden workers and volunteers have helped it thrive. The botanic gardens supervisor, Sheree Parker, said the ginkgo was one of the first trees planted in the park and was also its "most visited and talked about". Standing beneath it is the most popular spot in the gardens to get married, and its branches form the backdrop of a great many wedding photographs. Its fruit has a reputation for being smelly.
Ginkgos, also known as maidenhairs, are among the most ancient trees on earth, dating back to the Jurassic period more than 160 million years ago. They were thought to be extinct in the wild for many centuries before being revived.
The National Trust uses the award to press for statutory protection for the trees on its significant tree register.
The award is annual. The species is not.
On the figures the Trust has supplied, the Geelong ginkgo has been a member of an eligible species for something over 160 million years, and a resident of Victoria for 167 of them. The title it won on Tuesday runs for twelve months.
Its margin should also be read carefully. Twenty-seven per cent of 4,435 means that roughly three thousand two hundred voters preferred a different tree. Every one of those voters is younger than the winner.
The procedure is similarly one-sided. A panel of 12 experts reduced a register of 2,500 trees to nine. None of the nine applied. None of the nine was told. The ginkgo's entire contribution to the process was to continue standing in the same place, which is also its entire contribution to the previous 167 years, and which appears to have been sufficient.
The Department of Unnecessary Research notes that the winner has already outlasted every judging panel that preceded it and is expected to outlast this one. Given a long enough register, every tree wins.