Ginkgo entered English botanical nomenclature through one of history's most consequential typos. The German physician and botanist Engelbert Kaempfer encountered the tree during his stay in Japan (1690-1692) and recorded its Japanese name, which should have been rendered as ginkyo or ginkjo (from Japanese ginkō, 銀杏). Instead, Kaempfer wrote ginkgo — apparently misreading his own notes or the Japanese script. When Linnaeus adopted the word for his Systema Naturae in 1771, he perpetuated the error. By the time anyone noticed, the spelling was fixed in scientific nomenclature, and ginkgo it has remained.
The Japanese ginkō derives from Chinese yínxìng (銀杏), literally meaning silver apricot — a poetic description of the tree's silvery, apricot-shaped fruit. The Chinese name captures the visual appearance of the seeds within their fleshy outer coating: pale, rounded, and resembling small apricots with a metallic sheen. In modern Japanese, the tree is more commonly called ichō, while ginkō refers primarily to the edible nut.
The ginkgo's claim to being a living fossil is not metaphorical hyperbole but literal paleontological fact. Fossil ginkgo leaves virtually identical to those of the modern species appear in geological strata dating to the Jurassic period, over 200 million years ago. The ginkgo survived the mass extinction that killed the non-avian dinosaurs 66 million years ago, survived the ice ages, and survived into the modern era — though by the time humans encountered it, it may have survived only in a small refuge in central China, where Buddhist monks cultivated it in temple gardens.
The ginkgo's extraordinary resilience has been demonstrated in modern times under the most extreme conditions. Six ginkgo trees survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, despite being within one to two kilometers of the blast's hypocenter. These trees were badly damaged but regenerated and continue to grow today, earning the ginkgo the Japanese designation hibaku jumoku — survivor tree. A tree that survived the Jurassic also survived the nuclear age
As an urban street tree, the ginkgo has become ubiquitous in cities worldwide, valued for its resistance to pollution, disease, and insects. Its fan-shaped leaves turn brilliant gold in autumn before falling in a dramatic synchronized drop — sometimes shedding an entire crown of leaves in a single day. The ginkgo extract industry, marketing the leaves as a cognitive supplement, represents a multibillion-dollar global market, though scientific evidence for significant cognitive benefits remains mixed.