Also called maidenhair tree or 銀杏 (ichō or gin kyō, "silver apricot" in 🇯🇵 Japanese). Pronounced gingko (ɡɪŋkoʊ). The English spelling "ginkgo" probably is a misspelling of that Japanese "ginkyo".
The only surviving species of its genus,
family
and
order Ginkgoales.
200 million years ago, ginkgoes were native to much of the 🌐︎ world. Apparently, its sister- and cousin-species that could not fix nitrogen
did not survive the K-Pg (dinosaur-killing) event. And competition with flowering plants further shrank its habitat. By 2 million years ago, it was native only to 🇨🇳 China, and has now dwindled to a few small areas. It may soon be extinct in the wild.
[1]
✋︎ On the other hand, this tree is 🌐︎ widely planted around the world.
🗺 Map by county (🇺🇸 USA-48)
(color key).
Probably due to the tree's resistance to insects
and pollution, and ability to grow under concrete and asphalt.
We see ginkgoes planted a lot in parking lots.
Uses by native peoples
(Ethnobotany database)
"Medicinal Plants And Herbs" article on this plant from Steven Foster.
Ginkgo hosts caterpillars of no species
of butterflies and moths, in some areas.
Because this tree evolved in ecological isolation, it contributes few ecosystem services.
If you buy this plant at a nursery, it will probably be a male clone, which score very high (7, 9-10, out of 10) on the OPALS™ Ogren Plant Allergy Scale. Finding female plants for sale is rare, due to their 👃︎ foul-smelling seeds.
Recipe
planting info (SW Michigan). 
Ginkgo Ginkgo biloba
have 'naked' seeds — thus called
gymnosperm
— by:
- not enclosing its seeds with any ovary structure, and
- packaging their seeds in cones (a different type of female reproductive structure, apparently).
So do
🌲︎ conifer order Pinales,
cycad order Cycadales,
and a few more.
Unlike most trees today, ginkgoes have been almost unchanged for 200 million years. Thus fossil ginkgo leaves (through their number of stomata) can tell us a lot about ancient levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.
A 4-minute video segment describing this appears from time index 37m00s to 41m00s in PBS program Nova episode "Polar Extremes", ↖ above or to left.
For full effect, select the video image's
icons ⤢ fullscreen, ㏄ Closed Captions=On,
scroll to time index 37m00s, and ▶︎ Play for 4 minutes.
↖ Above or to left is video Ginkgo Petrified Forest, by professor Nick Zentner.
For full effect, select the video image,
then icons YouTube (if present), ⏯︎ ⊠ Skip Ads (if present), ㏄ captions
(if you wish), ⛶ fullscreen, and ▶︎ Play.
References
[1]
"Ginkgo trees nearly went extinct. Here's how we saved these 'living fossils.'" National Geographic. .
Accessed .