Ginkgo trees are the last surviving species of a plant lineage that dates back roughly 325 million years, making them older than dinosaurs. While that fact alone would be enough to earn a spot on any list of remarkable organisms, ginkgos are special for a long list of reasons: they reproduce using swimming sperm, resist pollution and disease with unusual effectiveness, and appear to show no biological signs of aging even after a thousand years of life.
The Only Survivor of a 325-Million-Year Lineage
The broader group that ginkgos belong to, called Ginkgoatae, began evolving around 300 million years ago during the early Permian period. At their peak, more than 16 different genera existed across the planet. The genus Ginkgo itself first appeared in the middle Jurassic, about 170 million years ago, meaning it shared the Earth with some of the most iconic dinosaurs.
Every other member of this lineage eventually went extinct. Today, Ginkgo biloba is the sole surviving species, and its broader lineage has been evolutionarily isolated for over 300 million years. That’s why scientists routinely call it a “living fossil.” In the wild, only a handful of tiny, isolated populations still exist, clustered in a few sites in China such as Tianmushan Mountain in Zhejiang Province. The ginkgos you see lining city streets around the world are cultivated descendants of these remnant wild trees.
Leaves and Veins Unlike Any Other Tree
Ginkgo leaves are instantly recognizable: flat, fan-shaped, and split into two lobes. But what really sets them apart is the vein pattern inside. Most modern trees have a branching network of veins that reconnect with each other, forming a web. Ginkgo veins don’t do this. Instead, they fork in pairs from the base of the leaf and never cross-connect, a pattern called open dichotomous venation. This is an ancient arrangement, essentially unchanged from the leaf fossils found in rocks hundreds of millions of years old.
Swimming Sperm in a Seed Plant
One of the most biologically unusual features of ginkgos is how they fertilize their seeds. Most seed plants deliver sperm through a pollen tube directly to the egg cell, with no need for water. Ginkgos do something much more primitive. They produce pollen tubes, but their sperm cells are flagellated and motile, meaning they physically swim to reach the egg. This is a trait shared only with cycads among living seed plants. Mosses, ferns, and other ancient plant groups also have swimming sperm, but they don’t produce seeds. Ginkgos sit at a fascinating evolutionary midpoint: they have both the pollen tube of a modern seed plant and the swimming sperm of a far more ancient one.
Trees That Don’t Seem to Age
Individual ginkgo trees can live for well over 1,000 years. Researchers studying specimens ranging from 15 to 1,353 years old made a striking discovery: the oldest trees showed no genetic signs of aging at the whole-plant level. Their growth-producing tissue, called the vascular cambium, still functioned in a healthy, mature state. Genes associated with autophagy (the cell’s self-cleaning process) were expressed at nearly identical levels in young and old trees. Senescence-related genes didn’t ramp up with age the way you’d expect in an organism winding down.
What the oldest trees did show was heavy expression of defense-related genes, both preformed and inducible. In other words, rather than deteriorating, ancient ginkgos seem to invest heavily in protecting themselves from disease and environmental threats. Their leaves still photosynthesize efficiently, and their seeds still germinate at normal rates, even after centuries of growth. The trees do produce less new wood as they age, but this appears to be a slowing of growth rather than a decline toward death.
Built to Survive Pollution and Catastrophe
Ginkgos are a popular street tree in cities worldwide, and their tolerance for urban pollution is not just anecdotal. Their leaves have specific physical traits that limit the damage air pollutants can do. Compared to more sensitive species, ginkgo leaves have mesophyll (the inner photosynthetic tissue) that is 1.6 to 2.4 times thicker, creating a longer path that pollutants must travel before reaching vulnerable cells. Their stomata, the tiny pores that allow gas exchange, are both fewer in number (roughly a quarter to half the density of more sensitive plants) and sunken below the leaf surface. This combination reduces how much pollution actually enters the leaf.
The result is that ginkgos maintain their photosynthetic function far better under air pollution and soil salinity stress than many other species. This built-in resilience helps explain why they’ve become such a fixture on smog-filled city streets from Tokyo to New York.
Perhaps the most dramatic testament to ginkgo toughness came from Hiroshima. After the atomic bombing on August 6, 1945, 170 trees survived the blast and still stand in the city today. Among them is a 200-year-old ginkgo in Shukkeien Garden, located less than a mile from where the bomb detonated. Seeds from these survivor trees have since been planted around the world as symbols of resilience.
The Smell Problem: Male vs. Female Trees
Ginkgos are dioecious, meaning individual trees are either male or female. This distinction matters a great deal to anyone who has walked past a female ginkgo in autumn. Female trees produce fleshy seed coats loaded with butyric acid, the same compound responsible for the smell of rancid butter and vomit. The odor is strong enough that most cities deliberately plant only male trees. If you’ve ever encountered a ginkgo-lined street with a terrible smell underfoot in fall, you’ve found the female ones.
The seeds inside that foul-smelling coat, however, are edible and have been a valued food in East Asian cuisine for centuries. They’re typically roasted or boiled before eating.
A Long History in Medicine
Ginkgo leaves contain over 60 bioactive compounds. The most significant groups are flavonoids (about 24% of a standardized extract) and terpenoids (about 6%). The flavonoids, primarily based on quercetin, kaempferol, and isorhamnetin, act as antioxidants. The terpenoids, including compounds called ginkgolides and bilobalide, are chemically unusual: ginkgolides are the only known natural substances containing a specific structural group called a tert-butyl group. These terpenoids play a role in cardiovascular and cerebrovascular protection.
Standardized ginkgo leaf extract has been studied extensively for its antioxidant activity and its potential to support nervous system function. It remains one of the most widely used herbal supplements globally, particularly for circulation and cognitive support, though its clinical effectiveness varies depending on the condition being treated.