How many kinds of leaves can you find among your buttons? Here is a stylized Ginkgo leaf design, center set with a steel. Known as a ‘living fossil’, the Ginkgo biloba is one of the world’s oldest living tree species. It is the only surviving member of a group of ancient plants believed to have inhabited the earth up to 200 million years ago. The first record of Europeans encountering it is in 1690 in Japanese temple gardens, where the tree was seen by the German botanist Engelbert Kaempfer. In 1754 it was cultivated in the nursery of James Gordon of London and in Kew Botanical Gardens in 1762.