Abstract
Summary: My survey on a history of Ginkgo both in Japan and China was based on the Japanese and Chinese classical literatures. In China the literatures show that ginkgo started to be cultured in the urban areas in the early10th century and the herbal effects came to be known in the12th century.This plant was first recorded in a Chinese herbal called Shoko-honzo, edited in1159. In Japan the oldest literature which records ‘ginkgoin’ Chinese character is Isei-teikin-ourai edited in about1370. A report written in 1988 says that a sunken ship discovered in the sea near Korea is considered to have been sailing from China for Hakata in Kyusyu, Japan, about 1323. A ginkgo nut was among the relics pulled up from the ship. All the literatures and the discovery of the ginkgo nut in the sunken ship strongly suggests two important points; firstly ginkgo was introduced to Japan by the form of seed and secondly, the seeds were transferred at the period between the late 13th and the early 14th centuries.
