In today`s world you will find it hard to come across examples of living fossils. Living fossil is a term used by the scientific community which means living animals and plants that are basically unchanged from the fossilised remains of their predecessors. A few examples that are still in evidence are those of the alligator and crocodile that have been around allegedly for 200 million years. There is however something that even beats the crocodile and alligator, and that comes in the form of a species of tree called the Ginko Biloba, which is said to have been around for 270 million years. If that is not pretty amazing itself, it might not have existed for thousands of years if it wasn`t for human intervention.



The Ginko Biloba was thought by scientists in Europe to be extinct, and like the rest of the Ginko family was only known from fossil records. All this changed when German explorer and scientist Engelbert Kaempfer travelled to Japan in 1691. In Kaempfers travels across Japan he frequently visited the houses of nobles and a number of monasteries. frequently seen in the gardens of these buildings were Ginko trees, which were highly valued for their culinary and medical properties. On his return to Europe in 1693 Kaempfer gave some Ginko seeds to the botanical gardens in Utrecht. The Ginko trees in Utrecht have been used to spawn collections of Ginko trees in botanical gardens all over Europe and the US.

One key factor that the Ginko tree has, that has undoubtedly helped it through time is that it is highly resistant to disease, and because of that it is belived that some trees have lived for over 2,500 years. The Ginko is unknown in most parts of the world and more-so in the wild. Nevertheless it has recently been found growing in the wild in Zhejiang, a province in China, but it is now believed that they were planted there due to limited diversity in the Zhejiang population.

The Ginko is a strong tree and you can`t really imagine how a tree so strong has to rely on human help to make it a success. Even more-so if you consider the fact that there are four Ginko trees in Hiroshima that survived the atom bomb blast despite being only 2 kilometres from the blast area.

The Ginko Biloba which relies so much on human intervention, has survived largely due to its use in traditional oriental medicine and it seems to have a stable future due to increasing claims that it assists with conditions of the central nervous system. Research is currently being undertaken to asses its fitness for use by Alzheimer`s patients.