Ginkgo biloba ‘Mephisto' is a very new male cultivar originating from Austria. This strain was selected by Josef Hahnl in 2007 from a seedling from a batch of seeds collected form the old Ginkgo in Schönbrunn castle in Vienna,  Austria. It was and named in honour of German writer and Ginkgo admirer, Johan Wolfgang Goethe, after one of the main characters of his famous poem tragedy, the Faust. Here Mephisto (short form of Mephistopheles) was the demon who made a blood-signed pact with Faust about his/Faust´s soul. Josef Hahnl said "I only observed it for 3 years. It Also has untypical leaves like Ginkgo biloba ‘Freak’ but is much larger than this and has an intense autumn colour."  
 
Description - Ginkgo biloba ‘Mephisto' has great foliage appeal. This cultivars resembles another of Hahnl´s cultivars Ginkgo biloba ‘Hop Sing’, from which it differs by the leaves being smaller. Its annual growth rate is 25 cm to 35 cm. The cultivar appears be upright in habit, but there is some speculation about the size it is likely to achieve. In 10 years, the original specimen has grown to a height of 3.7 m and a spread of 1.2 m . Expected height is expected to be somewhere in the regions of 5 m to 8m.