Ginkgo trees are the last surviving member of a plant lineage that dates back roughly 300 million years, making them older than dinosaurs. While the group once contained more than 16 genera, only a single species remains today: Ginkgo biloba. That alone would make them remarkable, but ginkgos are also unusual in how they reproduce, how long they live, how they shrug off pollution and radiation, and how their chemistry affects the human body.
The Last of a 300-Million-Year-Old Lineage
Ginkgos began diversifying during the early Permian period, about 300 million years ago. To put that in perspective, this was before the first dinosaurs appeared, before flowering plants existed, and before the continents had fully separated. Over hundreds of millions of years, the broader ginkgo family branched into more than 16 genera. All of them eventually went extinct except one. Ginkgo biloba is the sole surviving species of its entire taxonomic division, which is why botanists sometimes call it a “living fossil.” It has no close living relatives. The nearest comparison might be if every species of mammal on Earth disappeared except for one.
Reproduction More Like Ferns Than Modern Trees
Most seed-producing trees rely on wind or insects to deliver pollen, and fertilization happens passively. Ginkgos do something far more ancient. Along with cycads, they are the only living seed plants that produce motile sperm cells, meaning their sperm physically swim to reach the egg. This is a trait shared with ferns and mosses, plants that evolved hundreds of millions of years before seed-bearing trees. The proteins driving sperm movement in ginkgos are structurally similar to those found in fern sperm, a sign that this mechanism has been conserved across an enormous evolutionary gap.
Ginkgos are also dioecious, meaning individual trees are either male or female. Female trees produce fleshy, yellowish seed coats that are notorious for their smell. The culprit is butyric acid, the same compound responsible for the odor of rancid butter and vomit. The smell is deeply unpleasant to humans, but the fleshy coating likely evolved to attract animals that would eat the seeds, digest the outer layer, and deposit the hard inner shell (with its intact embryo) somewhere new. City planners typically plant only male trees to avoid the odor, though occasional misidentification means a stinky surprise can still show up on a sidewalk.
Fan-Shaped Leaves With Ancient Veins
Ginkgo leaves are instantly recognizable: flat, fan-shaped, and split into two lobes. Their vein pattern is what really sets them apart. Instead of the branching, net-like veins found in most broadleaf trees, ginkgo leaves have open dichotomous venation. Each vein forks into two equal branches, and those branches fork again, with no veins reconnecting. This pattern is common in ferns but extremely rare among seed plants. It reflects the ginkgo’s deep evolutionary origins, a structural blueprint that has barely changed in hundreds of millions of years.
Trees That Can Live for Millennia
The oldest documented living ginkgo tree is approximately 3,500 years old. That kind of lifespan demands explanation, and researchers have found one at the cellular level. A 2020 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences examined the growth tissue of ginkgo trees ranging from young to over 600 years old. Even in very old trees, the cells responsible for producing new wood continued dividing actively. Genes associated with disease resistance maintained high expression levels, and the trees kept producing protective chemical compounds at a steady rate. In other words, old ginkgos don’t simply endure. Their defense systems remain switched on, showing no clear signs of the age-related decline that limits most other organisms.
Surviving Atomic Bombs and Urban Pollution
Perhaps the most dramatic testament to ginkgo toughness came on August 6, 1945. After the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, 170 trees survived the blast and still stand in the city today. Among them are ginkgos, including a 200-year-old specimen in Shukkeien Garden, located less than a mile from the hypocenter of the explosion. While buildings were flattened and most vegetation was destroyed, these trees resprouted from charred trunks.
In everyday urban settings, ginkgos show a similar resilience. A study comparing ginkgo performance in high-pollution and low-pollution environments found that elevated levels of nitrogen dioxide, nitrogen monoxide, and suspended particulate matter actually increased photosynthetic activity in ginkgo leaves, while the same conditions decreased it in a comparison species. Salt tolerance follows the same pattern. When exposed to salt stress (a common problem along treated roads and sidewalks), ginkgos experienced only a 25% reduction in photosynthetic rate, compared to a 52% drop in the comparison plant. This combination of pollution tolerance, salt hardiness, and pest resistance is why ginkgos line streets in cities from Tokyo to New York.
A Pharmacy in the Leaves
Ginkgo leaves contain a cocktail of biologically active compounds that have made the tree one of the most studied plants in herbal medicine. The two main groups are flavonoids, which act as antioxidants, and terpenoids, which improve blood flow by relaxing blood vessels and reducing the stickiness of platelets. Together, these compounds give ginkgo extract anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, and antioxidant properties.
The most widely researched application is brain health. Ginkgo extract has been shown to increase cerebral blood flow, and standardized extracts have been tested in clinical trials focused on cognition, memory, and various forms of dementia. The extract appears to work through several pathways at once: reducing the production of harmful protein clumps associated with Alzheimer’s disease, acting as a free-radical scavenger to protect cells from oxidative damage, and modulating chemical signaling between neurons. Cardiovascular effects have also been documented, including lowered blood pressure through increased production of nitric oxide, a molecule that widens blood vessels.
That said, ginkgo supplements are not a guaranteed treatment for any condition, and results from clinical trials have been mixed. The compounds are real and measurable, but the size of their effect in humans varies depending on the dose, the formulation, and the individual.
Why One Species Captured So Much Attention
What makes the ginkgo genuinely special is the convergence of all these traits in a single species. It is not just old. It is the only survivor of an entire botanical division, with a reproductive system that belongs to an earlier era of life on Earth, leaves structured like ferns, cellular defenses that resist aging for thousands of years, and a chemistry that humans have used medicinally for centuries. Most “remarkable” trees can claim one or two unusual features. The ginkgo stacks them in a way no other living tree does.