North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Lon Rombough <lonrom@hevanet.com>]

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@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.