[NAFEX] Stinky ginkgo trees gotta go, says pol
Lon Rombough
lonrom at hevanet.com
Wed Dec 15 23:47:38 EST 2004
FWIW, the main ingredient in gingko fruit that makes the smell is
butyric acid, which is also the smell of rancid butter. Years ago,
there was a product for beekeepers called "Bee Go" that was used to
drive bees out of sections of the hive that were to be removed, and it
was mainly butyric acid. I had used that product before I ever
encountered gingko fruit, and when I first smelled it, I thought, "why
does this smell so familiar?" until it came to me where I'd smelled it
before.
-Lon Rombough
Grapes, writing, consulting, my book, The Grape Grower, at
http://www.bunchgrapes.com Winner of the Garden Writers Association
"Best Talent in Writing" award for 2003.
On Dec 15, 2004, at 6:51 PM, list at ginda.us wrote:
It is funny. I ran into a load of gingko fruits this year for the
first time. It was a cold day, and they littered the ground under one
tree in a row of gingkos. (The others are male, I suppose). I didn't
notice any odor, but I'd heard that they smelled bad, so I picked one
up and sniffed it. Pheww! Smelled like vomit, and I dropped it right
away.
I hadn't noticed the smell out in the open, when most of the fruits
were frozen, but after I got in the car, the flesh on my shoes started
to defrost, and the odor followed me until I scraped the pulp off of my
shoes. I don't know if I'd cut down a mature tree, but I don't think
I'll plant a female gingko in my yard, either. And I'll be careful not
to step on the fruits, too.
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