Ginkgo is a genus of highly unusual non-flowering plants.
The scientific name is also used as
the English name. The order to which it belongs, Ginkgoales, first appeared in the Permian,[4] 270
million years ago, possibly derived from "seed ferns" of the orderPeltaspermales. The rate of
evolution within the genus has been slow, and almost all its species had become extinct by the
end of thePliocene; the exception is the sole living species, Ginkgo biloba, which is only found in
the wild in China, but is cultivated across the world. The relationships between ginkgos and other
groups of plants are not fully resolved.
Contents
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1Prehistory
2Phylogeny
3References
o
3.1Sources
4External links
Prehistory[edit]
The ginkgo, (Ginkgoales) is a living fossil, with fossils recognisably related to modern ginkgo
from the Permian, dating back 270 million years. The most plausible ancestral group for the order
Ginkgoales is the Pteridospermatophyta, also known as the "seed ferns", specifically the
order Peltaspermales. The closest living relatives of the clade are the cycads,[5] which share with
the extant G. biloba the characteristic of motile sperm. Fossils attributable to the
genus Ginkgo first appeared in the Early Jurassic, and the genus diversified and spread
throughout Laurasia during the middle Jurassic and Early Cretaceous. It declined in diversity as
the Cretaceous progressed with the extinction of species such as Ginkgo huolinhensis, and by
the Palaeocene, only a few Ginkgo species, Ginkgo cranei and Ginkgo adiantoides, remained in
the Northern Hemisphere, while a markedly different (and poorly documented) form persisted in
the Southern Hemisphere.[citation needed] At the end of the Pliocene, Ginkgo fossils disappeared from
the fossil record everywhere except in a small area of central China, where the modern species
survived. It is doubtful whether the Northern Hemisphere fossil species of Ginkgo can be reliably
distinguished. Given the slow pace of evolution and morphological similarity between members
of the genus, there may have been only one or two species existing in the Northern Hemisphere
through the entirety of the Cenozoic: present-day G. biloba (includingG. adiantoides)
and G. gardneri from the Palaeocene of Scotland.[6]
Fossil Ginkgo huttonii leaves from the Jurassic of England
At least morphologically, G. gardneri and the Southern Hemisphere species are the only known
post-Jurassic taxa that can be unequivocally recognised. The remainder may have
been ecotypesor subspecies. The implications would be that G. biloba had occurred over an
extremely wide range, had remarkable genetic flexibility and, though evolving genetically, never
showed muchspeciation. While it may seem improbable that a species may exist as a contiguous
entity for many millions of years, many of the ginkgo's life-history parameters fit. These are:
extreme longevity; slow reproduction rate; (in Cenozoic and later times) a wide, apparently
contiguous, but steadily contracting distribution coupled with, as far as can be demonstrated from
the fossil record, extreme ecological conservatism (restriction to disturbed streamside
environments).[7]
Modern-day G. biloba grows best in well-watered and drained environments,[8] and the extremely
similar fossil Ginkgo favoured similar environments; the sediment records at the majority of
fossilGinkgo localities indicate it grew primarily in disturbed environments along streams and
levees.[7] Ginkgo therefore presents an "ecological paradox" because, while it possesses some
favourable traits for living in disturbed environments (clonal reproduction), many of its other lifehistory traits (slow growth, large seed size, late reproductive maturity) are the opposite of those
exhibited by modern plants that thrive in disturbed settings.[9]
Given the slow rate of evolution of the genus, it is possible that Ginkgo represents a
preangiosperm strategy for survival in disturbed streamside environments. Ginkgo evolved in an
era before flowering plants, when ferns, cycads, and cycadeoids dominated disturbed streamside
environments, forming a low, open, shrubby canopy. The large seeds ofGinkgo and its habit of
"bolting"growing to a height of 10 metres (33 ft) before elongating its side branchesmay be
adaptations to such an environment. Because diversity in the genus Ginkgo drops through the
Cretaceous (along with that of ferns, cycads, and cycadeoids) at the same time the flowering
plants were on the rise, supports the notion that flowering plants, with their better adaptations to
disturbance, displaced Ginkgo and its associates over time.[10]
Ginkgo has been used for classifying plants with leaves that have more than four veins per
segment, while Baiera for those with less than four veins per segment. Sphenobaierahas been
used to classify plants with broadly wedge-shaped leaves that lacks distinct leaf
stems. Trichopitys is distinguished by having multiple-forked leaves with cylindrical (not
flattened), thread-like ultimate divisions; it is one of the earliest fossils ascribed to the
Ginkgophyta.[citation needed]
Phylogeny[edit]
As of February 2013, molecular phylogenetic studies have produced at least six different
placements of Ginkgo relative to cycads, conifers, gnetophytes and angiosperms. The two most
common are that Ginkgo is a sister to a clade composed of conifers and gnetophytes or
that Ginkgo and cycads form a clade within the gymnosperms. A 2013 study examined the
reasons for the discrepant results, and concluded that the best support was for
the monophyly of Ginkgo and cycads, these being the earliest diverging gymnosperms.[11]
