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Societal Impact statement Ginkgo biloba is a distinctive living tree with a unique place in plant evolution and human culture. It is valued in horticulture and as a street tree, is a source of edible “nuts” and popular in herbal medicine, and it has proved inspirational in art, literature, and religion. Ginkgo is also a living link to diverse seed plants that flourished over 100 million years ago. With recent discoveries of extinct fossil ginkgo relatives, and the recent draft sequence of its genome, ginkgo offers opportunities to increase public understanding of plant science and the importance of plant conservation. Summary Ginkgo ( Ginkgo biloba L.) is one of the world’s most distinctive trees and has no close living relatives. It is the last survivor of an ancient and once diverse lineage that was almost extinguished by the Pleistocene glaciations and survived only as a relic in restricted areas of eastern and central China. Remarkably, since then, through its association with people, ginkgo has undergone a dramatic resurgence. In China, Japan, and Korea, it has long been prized as an edible nut and it is also revered in eastern religions. Ginkgo is also one of the world’s most widely used street trees, has become a popular horticultural novelty, and has featured prominently in art of all kinds. Extracts from its leaves are a widely used herbal supplement. In the context of current threats to plant diversity, ginkgo is a good news story: an unusual exemplar that highlights how people can contribute to species survival in the world of plants.