The Tree That Outlived the Dinosaurs

A ginkgo leaf looks designed: a small fan with veins that repeatedly fork in two. Yet the pattern is not a modern invention. Recognizable ginkgo relatives lived more than 200 million years ago, before many familiar flowering plants existed and while dinosaurs still walked the planet.

Today, the entire lineage is represented by one living species: Ginkgo biloba.

A survivor with almost no close company

Fossils show that ginkgo-like trees were once more widespread and diverse. The lineage endured enormous changes, including mass extinctions, while its relatives disappeared. That long continuity is why ginkgo is often called a “living fossil”—not because it stopped evolving, but because the modern tree preserves features of a very ancient branch of plant life.

Its survival into the present is also entangled with people. Ginkgo was cultivated for centuries in East Asia, especially around temples, before becoming a familiar street and garden tree around the world.

The famous fruit is not really a fruit

Ginkgo is a gymnosperm, not a flowering plant. Female trees produce seeds with a fleshy outer covering that can smell strongly when it drops and breaks down. Male trees do not make those seeds, which is why many street plantings have traditionally favored male selections.

The sexes usually occur on separate trees, and a young plant may take years to reveal which it is. That slow timetable feels appropriate for a species whose story is measured in geological eras.

Ancient does not mean native

Ginkgo tolerates compacted soil, heat, and many urban stresses, making it a remarkable city tree. But in eastern North America it is not a substitute for native trees in habitat restoration. Native insects and food webs have much deeper relationships with local oaks, cherries, willows, and maples.

Ginkgo’s greatest gift may be perspective. Every autumn, its fan-shaped leaves turn a luminous yellow and often fall within a short window, laying down a bright carpet. A tree older in lineage than the dinosaurs becomes, for a few days, impossible to overlook on an ordinary sidewalk.

Further reading: Smithsonian Fossil Atmospheres and Kew Gardens on ginkgo.