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Ginkgo L.

Ginkgo

Synonyms
  • Salisburia Sm., nom. illeg.
  • Pterophyllus J.Nelson, nom. illeg.
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Treatment and Overview

Ginkgo L., commonly called ginkgo, is a genus of deciduous gymnosperm trees in Ginkgoaceae Engl. It contains one accepted living species, Ginkgo biloba L., the ginkgo or maidenhair-tree. Carl Linnaeus established the genus and species in October 1771 in Mantissa Plantarum Altera, page 313. Plants of the World Online and World Flora Online accept Ginkgo as the sole living genus of Ginkgoaceae (International Plant Names Index 2026; Plants of the World Online 2026; World Flora Online 2026).

The genus is predominantly—and among living plants exclusively—composed of woody trees with true secondary growth. Living Ginkgo biloba develops a substantial trunk and branching crown. Long shoots extend the branch system, while compact short shoots bear closely spaced leaves and most reproductive structures. The familiar leaves are fan-shaped and have open, repeatedly forked veins (Lin et al. 2022).

The spelling Ginkgo is unusual but established. Linnaeus adopted the name from Engelbert Kaempfer’s account of Japanese plants. It has often been described as a simple typographical error, but Nagata et al. (2015) argued that Kaempfer’s transcription can be understood through the historical Nagasaki pronunciation used by his Japanese assistant, Genemon Imamura. Gingko is a common transposition in English but is not the accepted botanical spelling, which Tree TSAR also utilizes for the common name.

Two later generic names became important historical synonyms. James Edward Smith proposed Salisburia in 1797, and John Nelson proposed Pterophyllus in 1866. Plants of the World Online treats both as illegitimate synonyms of Ginkgo. Nineteenth-century authors sometimes placed the genus near yews or more generally among conifers, whereas modern classifications recognize it as the sole living genus of its own family and order (Plants of the World Online 2026).

Among living plants, Ginkgo has no sister genus within Ginkgoaceae. Phylogenomic analyses instead recover the entire ginkgo lineage as sister to cycads collectively. The relevant divergence is therefore between ancient higher lineages, not between Ginkgo and another living genus (Wu et al. 2013; Ran et al. 2018; Liu et al. 2022).

The principal taxonomic complexity lies in the fossil record.

Living and fossil species

The living genus is monotypic, but numerous extinct species have been assigned to Ginkgo from Jurassic, Cretaceous, and Cenozoic deposits. A stable total species count is not meaningful because many names are based on isolated leaves, species boundaries have been interpreted differently, and reproductive structures are rarely preserved. Fossil assignments therefore vary in evidentiary strength (Zhou 2009).

The oldest well-documented ovule-bearing structures assigned to the genus occur in the Middle Jurassic. Ginkgo yimaensis Zhou & Zhang from China preserves deeply divided leaves, long and short shoots, pollen organs, and branched ovulate structures bearing several ovules. Ginkgo ginkgoidea (Tralau) X.J.Yang, Friis & Z.Y.Zhou from Sweden likewise preserves associated leaves and ovule-bearing organs. These species show that recognizable Ginkgo architecture was established by the Middle Jurassic, while the reproductive system remained more elaborate than in the living tree (Yang et al. 2008; Zhou 2009).

Lower Cretaceous fossils document further reduction. Ginkgo apodes S.L.Zheng & Z.Y.Zhou bore a compact cluster of ovules at the end of a peduncle and helped bridge the morphological gap between Jurassic species and the living condition. Ginkgo neimengensis X.H.Xu, L.Y.Yang, B.N.Sun, Y.D.Wang & P.Chen had a modern-type ovulate structure with several developed or aborted ovules. These fossils indicate that highly reduced ovule-bearing structures appeared by the Early Cretaceous (Zhou & Zheng 2003; Zheng & Zhou 2004; Xu et al. 2017).

Male reproductive structures also changed. Ginkgo liaoningensis X.Q.Liu, C.S.Li & Y.F.Wang commonly bore three or four microsporangia on each sporangiophore, whereas living Ginkgo biloba usually bears two. This supports reduction in pollen-cone structure as well as in ovulate organs (Liu et al. 2006).

By the Paleocene, Ginkgo cranei Z.Y.Zhou, C.Quan & Y.S.Liu possessed a modern-type ovulate organ in which the ovules sat directly on collars attached to the peduncle. The widespread Cenozoic leaf species Ginkgo adiantoides (Unger) Heer closely resembles the living tree and has been used for many fossil occurrences, although cuticular differences and broad historical usage make some species boundaries uncertain (Royer et al. 2003; Zhou et al. 2012).

These fossils show persistence of a recognizable genus but not complete stasis. Leaf division, pollen-cone structure, ovule number, branching, geographic range, and ecological distribution changed through time.

Distinction from fossil organ-genera

Ginkgoites, Baiera, Sphenobaiera, and Pseudotorellia are fossil organ- or morphogenera, not accepted synonyms of the biological genus Ginkgo. They were established chiefly for detached leaves or shoots.

A fossil leaf assigned to Ginkgoites may have been produced by a plant close to Ginkgo, but it does not by itself establish that the complete plant belonged within the genus. Reproductive structures, cuticles, wood, attached shoots, and repeated organic association provide stronger evidence than general leaf resemblance (Zhou 2009).

The reassessment of the Umaltolepis–Pseudotorellia plant illustrates the problem. Narrow leaves once treated as ginkgophyte evidence were associated with reproductive structures now considered more similar to those of peltasperms and corystosperms than to Ginkgo (Herrera et al. 2017).

Living-fossil terminology

Ginkgo is frequently called a living-fossil genus because it has a long fossil record and one surviving species with ancient-looking features. The term is useful when it emphasizes phylogenetic isolation and the survival of a formerly diverse lineage. It is misleading when it implies that the genus stopped evolving. Fossil morphology, population genomics, and demographic history all document continuing change (Royer et al. 2003; Zhao et al. 2019).

Horticultural and Agricultural Uses

All modern uses of Ginkgo derive from Ginkgo biloba. The species is widely planted as a street tree, shade tree, specimen, memorial tree, and historic landscape plant. Its fan-shaped leaves, golden autumn color, longevity, and tolerance of many urban conditions make it one of the world’s most recognizable ornamental gymnosperms.

Cultivars vary in crown width, mature size, branching habit, leaf shape, variegation, and growth rate. Narrow or compact selections are useful where space is limited. Clonally propagated pollen-bearing cultivars are commonly used along streets because they do not produce soft-coated seeds, but ovule-bearing trees remain essential for reproduction, conservation, breeding, cultural landscapes, and edible-seed production.

Ginkgo grows best in full sun with adequate rooting volume and well-drained soil. It tolerates a broad range of temperatures and many urban stresses after establishment. Prolonged waterlogging and excess humidity can impair photosynthesis and leaf development, so the tree’s reputation for toughness should not be interpreted as universal tolerance of poor site conditions (Lin et al. 2022; Matsuura et al. 2026).

The genus is propagated from seed, cuttings, grafts, and tissue culture. Seedlings are genetically variable and cannot ordinarily be sexed reliably when young through external morphology. Named cultivars are therefore propagated clonally to preserve known sex and growth habit.

Commercial plantings produce prepared seed kernels for food and leaves for standardized extracts. The soft outer seed coat is removed during processing. Fresh or excessive seeds can be toxic, and commercial leaf products vary in composition and evidence of efficacy (Liu et al. 2022; National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health 2025).

Conservation Issues

The conservation status of the living genus is identical to that of Ginkgo biloba, which is assessed as Endangered. Ginkgo is globally abundant in cultivation but naturally restricted and genetically structured (Forest et al. 2018; Plants of the World Online 2026).

The original natural range is difficult to reconstruct because people have cultivated, protected, and transported ginkgo trees for centuries. Plants of the World Online accepts Zhejiang in southeastern China as native, while ecological and genetic research supports relict populations or refugial components in additional parts of China (Tang et al. 2012; Zhao et al. 2019).

Genome-wide analysis of 545 trees identified several ancient genetic components, three principal refugial regions, repeated demographic expansions and contractions, admixture among relict populations, and human-mediated introductions. Plastome research in the Sichuan Basin recovered three maternal lineages and additional regional differentiation not identical to the nuclear-genome pattern (Zhao et al. 2019; Nie et al. 2025).

Conservation should therefore preserve documented geographic and genetic representation rather than treating every cultivated tree as equivalent. Priority actions include protecting naturally regenerating populations, documenting provenance, maintaining both sexes, representing multiple nuclear and maternal lineages, and reducing reliance on a few common ornamental clones.

Ex situ conservation is extensive in botanical gardens, arboreta, temple grounds, historic landscapes, seed orchards, municipal forests, and private collections. Its scientific value increases when provenance and genetic breadth are recorded.

No modern extinction has been recorded within Ginkgo. The timing of the loss of the last distinct congener cannot be stated precisely because the long-ranging Cenozoic fossil Ginkgo adiantoides is morphologically indistinguishable from G. biloba and has sometimes been treated as conspecific. Fossil Ginkgo disappeared from Europe by about 2.5 million years ago, while the youngest known records are late Pliocene to Pleistocene occurrences in Japan (Royer et al. 2003; Hohmann et al. 2018). Loss of G. biloba would eliminate the final living genus of Ginkgoaceae and Ginkgoales.

Accepted Taxa
Ginkgo biloba L. Common ginkgo

Additional Information

References and Further Reading

Crane PR (2019) An evolutionary and cultural biography of ginkgo. Plants, People, Planet 1(1): 32–37. https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.7

Forest F, Moat J, Baloch E, Brummitt NA, Bachman SP, Ickert-Bond S, Hollingsworth PM, Liston A, Little DP, Mathews S, et al. (2018) Gymnosperms on the EDGE. Scientific Reports 8: 6053. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-24365-4

Herrera F, Shi G, Ichinnorov N, Takahashi M, Bugdaeva EV, Herendeen PS, Crane PR (2017) The presumed ginkgophyte Umaltolepis has seed-bearing structures resembling those of Peltaspermales and Umkomasiales. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 114(12): E2385–E2391. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1621409114

Hohmann N, Wolf EM, Rigault P, Zhou W, Kiefer M, Zhao Y, Fu CX, Koch MA (2018) Ginkgo biloba’s footprint of dynamic Pleistocene history dates back only 390,000 years ago. BMC Genomics 19: 299. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-018-4673-2

International Plant Names Index (2026) Ginkgo L. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; Harvard University Herbaria & Libraries; Australian National Herbarium. https://www.ipni.org/n/11657-1

Lin HY, Li WH, Lin CF, Wu HR, Zhao YP (2022) International biological flora: Ginkgo biloba. Journal of Ecology 110(4): 951–982. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.13856

Liu XQ, Li CS, Wang YF (2006) The pollen cones of Ginkgo from the Early Cretaceous of China, and their bearing on the evolutionary significance. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 152(2): 133–144. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1095-8339.2006.00547.x

Liu Y, Xin H, Zhang Y, Che F, Shen N, Cui Y (2022) Leaves, seeds and exocarp of Ginkgo biloba L. (Ginkgoaceae): A comprehensive review of traditional uses, phytochemistry, pharmacology, resource utilization and toxicity. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 298: 115645. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jep.2022.115645

Liu Y, Wang S, Li L, Yang T, Dong S, Wei T, Wu S, Liu Y, Gong Y, Feng X, et al. (2022) The Cycas genome and the early evolution of seed plants. Nature Plants 8(4): 389–401. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-022-01129-7

Matsuura T, Okugawa S, Yamakita E, Kiyomizu T, Tsutsui Y, Kume A, Hanba YT (2026) Evaluation of the photosynthetic response of Ginkgo biloba as an urban tree to air pollution, soil salinity, and excess humidity. Frontiers in Plant Science 17: 1746328. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2026.1746328

Nagata T, DuVal A, Crane PR (2015) Engelbert Kaempfer, Genemon Imamura and the origin of the name Ginkgo. Taxon 64(1): 131–136. https://doi.org/10.12705/641.25

National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (2025) Ginkgo: Usefulness and safety. National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/ginkgo

Nie L, Liu F, Wang M, Jiang Z, Kong J, Tembrock LR, Kan S, Wang P, Wang J, Wu Z, et al. (2025) Plastome data provides new insights into population differentiation and evolution of ginkgo in the Sichuan Basin of China. BMC Plant Biology 25: 48. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12870-024-05977-7

Plants of the World Online (2026) Ginkgo L. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:11657-1

World Flora Online (2026) Ginkgo L. World Flora Online Consortium. https://www.worldfloraonline.org/taxon/wfo-4000015665

Ran JH, Shen TT, Wang MM, Wang XQ (2018) Phylogenomics resolves the deep phylogeny of seed plants and indicates partial convergent or homoplastic evolution between Gnetales and angiosperms. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 285(1881): 20181012. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.1012

Royer DL, Hickey LJ, Wing SL (2003) Ecological conservatism in the “living fossil” Ginkgo. Paleobiology 29(1): 84–104. https://doi.org/10.1666/0094-8373(2003)029%3C0084:ECITLF%3E2.0.CO;2

Tang CQ, Yang Y, Ohsawa M, Yi SR, Momohara A, Su WH, Wang HC, Zhang ZY, Peng MC, Wu ZL (2012) Evidence for the persistence of wild Ginkgo biloba (Ginkgoaceae) populations in the Dalou Mountains, southwestern China. American Journal of Botany 99(8): 1408–1414. https://doi.org/10.3732/ajb.1200168

Wu CS, Chaw SM, Huang YY (2013) Chloroplast phylogenomics indicates that Ginkgo biloba is sister to cycads. Genome Biology and Evolution 5(1): 243–254. https://doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evt001

Xu XH, Yang LY, Sun BN, Wang YD, Chen P (2017) A new Early Cretaceous Ginkgo ovulate organ with associated leaves from Inner Mongolia, China and its evolutionary significance. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 244: 163–181. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.revpalbo.2017.05.007

Yang XJ, Friis EM, Zhou ZY (2008) Ovule-bearing organs of Ginkgo ginkgoidea (Tralau) comb. nov., and associated leaves from the Middle Jurassic of Scania, South Sweden. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 149(1–2): 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.revpalbo.2007.09.005

Zhao YP, Fan G, Yin PP, Sun S, Li N, Hong X, Hu G, Zhang H, Zhang FM, Han JD, et al. (2019) Resequencing 545 ginkgo genomes across the world reveals the evolutionary history of the living fossil. Nature Communications 10: 4201. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12133-5

Zheng SL, Zhou ZY (2004) A new Mesozoic Ginkgo from western Liaoning, China and its evolutionary significance. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 131(1–2): 91–103. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.revpalbo.2004.03.002

Zhou ZY (2009) An overview of fossil Ginkgoales. Palaeoworld 18(1): 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palwor.2009.01.001

Zhou ZY, Quan C, Liu YS (2012) Tertiary Ginkgo ovulate organs with associated leaves from North Dakota, U.S.A., and their evolutionary significance. International Journal of Plant Sciences 173(1): 67–80. https://doi.org/10.1086/662651

Zhou ZY, Zheng SL (2003) Palaeobiology: The missing link in Ginkgo evolution. Nature 423(6942): 821–822. https://doi.org/10.1038/423821a