ZnO nanostructures were grown on an Au seed layer by a hydrothermal method. The Au seed layer was deposited by ion sputter on a Si (100) substrate, and then the ZnO nanostructures were grown with different precursor concentrations ranging from 0.01 M to 0.3M at 150oC and different growth temperatures ranging from 100oC to 250oC with 0.3 M of precursor concentration. FE-SEM (field-emission scanning electron microscopy), XRD (X-ray diffraction), and PL(photoluminescence) were carried out to investigate the structural and optical properties of the ZnO nanostructures. The different morphologies are shown with different growth conditions by FE-SEM images. The density of the ZnO nanostructures changed significantly as the growth conditions changed. The density increased as the precursor concentration increased. The ZnO nanostructures are barely grown at 100oC and the ZnO nanostructure grown at 150oC has the highest density. The XRD pattern shows the ZnO (100), ZnO (002), ZnO (101) peaks, which indicated the ZnO structure has a wurtzite structure. The higher intensity and lower FWHM (full width at half maximum) of the ZnO peaks were observed at a growth temperature of 150oC, which indicated higher crystal quality. A near band edge emission (NBE) and a deep level emission (DLE) were observed at the PL spectra and the intensity of the DLE increased as the density of the ZnO nanostructures increased.