Ginkgo Tree

Ginkgo biloba L.

Ginkgo Tree

Ginkgo biloba L.

“Ginkgo is known as a living fossil…” – Fun Facts

Orem Arboretum Ginkgo biloba tree (also known as Maidenhair) (Armstrong, 2024a)

Summary

Tree

Ginkgo biloba is a tree that can reach 30 meters tall at maturity, branching, and generally dioecious (having either male or female reproductive parts).

Leaves

Leaves are fan-shaped, clustered on short, spur-like branches, and mostly glabrous (hairless), ~1.5 times wider than long, with the tip rounded-truncate and sometimes notched, the leaves turn a golden yellow in fall.

Fruits

Fruits are technically not true fruit, but fleshy female cones, yellow-orange to green in color, with a round to oval shape.

Male Cones

Male Cones are 2.5 cm long, catkin-like, with numerous loosely arranged “stamens” (Whetstone, 2020).

Taxonomy

(How things are grouped and categorized based on shared traits.)

Kingdom: Plantae
-Phylum: Streptophyta
–Class: Equisetopsida
—Subclass: Ginkgoidae
—-Order: Ginkgoales
—–Family: Ginkgoaceae
——Genus: Ginkgo
——-Species: biloba

Female Cones, Ginkgo biloba (Zell, 2010)

Taxonomic History:

Ginkgo biloba was first described by Carl Linnaeus (1771) and due to the uniqueness of this species, the binomial has never changed.

Ginkgo biloba leaves (Fish, n.d.)

Identification Tips

Ginkgo biloba is most easily identified by its fan-shaped leaves, which may occasionally be divided by a cleft through the center, leading to the species name ‘biloba’, meaning two lobes. Ginkgo biloba will almost always be planted and in cultivation.

Fun Fact!

Ginkgo is known as a living fossil. The plant is largely unchanged in the fossil record as far back as 200 million years ago.

Fun Fact!

Ginkgo is quite different from other plants in that it has sperm that are motile and swim to fertilize the egg while still on the tree, a characteristic found in some mosses and ferns (Vaughn & Renzaglia, 2006).

Native Range:

Distribution map of Ginkgo biloba with the hypothesized native range in green and the introduced, naturalized region in purple (POWO, 2024)

Native

Introduced

Distribution map of Ginkgo biloba with the hypothesized native range in green and the introduced, naturalized region in purple (POWO, 2024)

Plant Ecology/Habitat

Ginkgo biloba is now found only in cultivation. The only hypothesized natural occurrences are reported to be in mountain valleys in China’s Zhejiang province. (Page, 1990). The debate continues as to whether this plant is extinct in the wild or just narrowly restricted to remote locales.

Economic or Ethnobotanical Uses

Ginkgo biloba is traditionally known as a source of pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, largely because of the lipids in the seeds.
Ginkgo is clinically proven and widely used in the nutraceutical industry to treat memory and cognitive issues (Akaberi et al., 2023).

Male flowers and leaves, Ginkgo biloba (Begovic, 2012).

Conservation Status

Ginkgo biloba is considered a critically imperiled species (NatureServe Explorer, 2024).

Additional Resources up-chevron-icon

References up-chevron-icon

Akaberi, M., Baharara, H., Amiri, M.S., Moghadam, A.T., Sahebkar, A., & Emami, S.A. (2023). Ginkgo biloba: An update review on pharmacological, ethnobotanical, and phytochemical studies. Pharmacological Research-Modern Chinese Medicine, 100331.
Armstrong, H. (2024a). Full Plant. Ginkgo biloba. [Photograph]. Orem City Center Park, Orem, UT.
Begovic, B. (2012). Ginkgo biloba male flower. [Photograph]. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ginkgo_biloba_male_flower.jpg
Fish, B. (n.d.). Ginkgo biloba leaves. [Photograph]. Pexels. https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-photo-of-ginkgo-leaves-9468380/
Kwiecień, A. (2016). Ginkgo biloba male strobili. [Photograph]. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ginkgo_biloba_Mi%C5%82orz%C4%85b_dwuklapowy_2016-05-02_01.jpg
Linnaeus, C. (1771). Mantissa Plantarum: Generum editionis VI et specierum editionis II. p. 313–314.
NatureServe. (2024). NatureServe Network Biodiversity Conservation Status Data accessed through NatureServe Explorer [web application]. NatureServe, Arlington, Virginia. Available at https://explorer.natureserve.org/Taxon/ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.158473/Ginkgo_biloba. Accessed Sept. 2024.
Page, C. N. (1990). Ginkgoaceae. In Pteridophytes and gymnosperms (pp. 284-289). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
POWO (2024). Plants of the World Online. Facilitated by the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew. Published on the Internet. Retrieved September 21, 2024 from https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:262125-1.
Whetstone, D.R. (2020). Ginkgo biloba. Flora of North America. [website]. www.floranorthamerica.org/Ginkgo_biloba. Accessed Sept. 2024.
Vaughn, K.C. and Renzaglia, K.S. (2006). Structural and immunocytochemical characterization of the Ginkgo biloba L. sperm motility apparatus. Protoplasma, 227, pp.165-173.
Zell, H. (2010). Ginkgo biloba 007. [Photograph]. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ginkgo_biloba_007.jpg

Ginkgo Tree

Ginkgo biloba L.

Ginkgo Tree

Ginkgo biloba L.

Summary

Tree

Leaves

Fruits

Male Cones

Taxonomy

Identification Tips

Fun Fact!

Fun Fact!

Native Range:

Plant Ecology/Habitat

Economic or Ethnobotanical Uses

Conservation Status

Contact Us!