The type locality for the species is at the Ypresian[2] McAbee Fossil Beds, near Cache Creek, British Columbia, in the Tranquille Formation belonging to the Kamloops Group.

G. dissecta is also known from the similarly aged sites of the Klondike Mountain Formation, which crop out around the town of Republic, Ferry County, Washington.

The specimens were studied by paleobotanist George Mustoe of the Western Washington University Geology Department.

The etymology of the chosen specific name dissecta was not identified by Mustoe in the type description, but he noted it is a formalization of the name which had been first used in 1974 in an unpublished thesis by Verschoor.

In contrast to the two-lobed structure of modern Ginkgo biloba leaves, the morphology of G. dissecta is four-lobed.