Ginkgo trees are either male or female and the horrible smell is only produced by female trees, when ripe seeds fall to the ground, i.e. not all ginkgos smell. Unfortunately, it's impossible to tell if a young individual is male or female (https://www.osgf.org/blog/2017/11/7/blandy-ginkgo).
If you have a patio or small balcony, you can grow the ginkgo shrub (Ginkgo biloba Mariken), we have one and its leaves just turned last week to a fantastic yellow, which is indescribable ... well, I just googled it and the color code is #f9f525
When I was in Japan they explained why Gingko trees are often planted near temples (apart from looking awesome), they say that the water content in the leaves and their apparent readiness to drop when stressed make them a great fire suppressant, and that fires in Autumn often failed to spread when there are gingko leaves on the ground, protecting the temple itself.
Downvoters have clearly never had the dubious pleasure of smelling a gingko boulevard in season, because I can vouch that this is true. The rotting fruit/nuts smell terrible, and even TFA mentions "their olfactory resemblance to carrion".
To my nose it’s closer to a mixture of dog poop and rancid butter. Maybe it’s like cilantro, and only some people can experience the full bouquet of scents…
Visitors to South Korea can enjoy the spectacle of Korea's most famous ginkgo tree, at Yongmun Temple (양평 용문사 은행나무) on the outskirts of Seoul, 42 meters tall, and thought to be around 1,100 years old. It has been designated a National natural treasure and was already famous in the 15th century, when the famed monarch King Sejong (r. 1418-50) designated the tree with ministerial official rank (正三品）。
Do you have a reference for that assertion? Googling and the wiki doesn't seem to support that idea.
>Although it is the seed that features most prominently in the Chinese materia medica, both oral tradition and written sources indicate that the medicinal properties of the gingko’s leaves have been utilized just as early and extensively. One indication is the fact that before the seeds were discovered by the imperial kitchen, the gingko’s main name–Duck Feet Tree–was fashioned after the leaves. Furthermore, regional herb usage in Sichuan, Zhejiang, Guangxi, Hebei, Henan, Liaoning and other gingko rich provinces documents that the gingko leaf has been used as a folk herb for a long time. And most importantly, the gingko leaf received a formal entry in the official materia medica commissioned by the Imperial Academy of Medicine almost 500 years ago.
Every autumn my mother would drive us to the local cemetery to pick up the gross fallen ginkgo seeds into a bag to take them home, wash the smelly seedcoats off, drop them onto a baking pan into the oven to roast them.
They taste and smell nothing like the vomit seedcoats, they’re kinda like pistachios but a bit rubbery and chewy. I’m still surprised they’re not more popular and that more people don’t know, but perhaps it’s because most municipalities avoid the smelly males. I didn’t realize the toxicity until checking wiki, either.
Female ginkgo trees are the ones that bear fruit and hence produce the offensive odor. But branches of a male ginko tree can (rarely) change sex and bare fruit.
I've never tried Ginko kernels roasted to the point they were crunchy. But I find the ones roasted (some times on a skewer) to the consistency of firm cooked lima beans have a flavor similar to lima beans. Preparing lima beans is much easier though they produce very different medicinal effects.
Really? They're pretty common in Japan in season, either salted and roasted or hiding in steamed chawanmushi (egg custard).
What is bloody revolting, though, is the smell of the rotting fruit, which bears a disturbing resemblance to semen that's been sitting around for a while.
Okay, hold on a second, that's an oddly specific description. How exactly are you familiar with the scent of 'semen that's been sitting around for a while'?
Well that's half my point, it seems there's a renewal of ideas / resources on those topics. Or maybe just enough successes to put light on long old work.
If you have a patio or small balcony, you can grow the ginkgo shrub (Ginkgo biloba Mariken), we have one and its leaves just turned last week to a fantastic yellow, which is indescribable ... well, I just googled it and the color code is #f9f525