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 Post subject: Gingko Update
PostPosted: Sat Dec 13, 2008 11:13 am 
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Past peak color but still looks good on the ground.


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 Post subject: Re: Gingko Update
PostPosted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 9:07 pm 
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Is this tree male or female? If it's female, what do you do with the fragrant seedpods?

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 Post subject: Re: Gingko Update
PostPosted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 10:05 pm 
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It's a girl but I didn't realize it until just a few years ago. So far I just pick up the fruit, dry and store in the frig. I give some of the seed away and plant some myself. I like to bonsai the little trees.


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 Post subject: Re: Ginkgo Update
PostPosted: Tue Feb 24, 2009 9:35 am 
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Years ago I lived in Brooklyn, NY, and worked one year as an Urban Park Ranger in Prospect Park. Frederick Law Olmstead was a post-Civil War designer (we used to joke that he practiced on Central Park, then got it right with Prospect Park). He established many defacto arboretums in his pastoral park designs, and this was one of them. There was one glade with a row of ginkgo trees, planted after Olmstead's lifetime but early enough in the 20th century to be very large trees by 1980.

Female ginkgos, when they drop those fruits, are popular with the Korean community, who collect them, grind the seed under their feet to remove the hull, then use the seed in food (I'm not sure how). But those hulls smell exactly like vomit. So how do you manage to store those seeds and discard the hulls without driving the neighbors or yourself nuts? You must have to bury them deep in the compost! Have you ever tried to eat them? Not a tea of the leaves, but food with the seeds?

When I was a child my family used to regularly visit Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park (http://www.stateparks.com/ginkgo_petrified_forest.html) in Washington--these trees are rarely found in petrified form.

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 Post subject: Re: Gingko Update
PostPosted: Thu Feb 26, 2009 7:25 pm 
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Interesting but where are the trees? The key to avoiding the smell is to pick them up right away and regularly. As they over-mature, they stink. I'm sure there is plenty on the web about using the fruit. I should have looked into it myself but haven't. You are now officially in charge of that research. The Asians are usually right on these things. Like jujubes, messy and some trouble but worth it.


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 Post subject: Re: Gingko Update
PostPosted: Thu Feb 26, 2009 10:13 pm 
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http://www.ginkgo-wellness.de/recipes/index.html

This shop has some interesting recipes. They say the ginkgo seed, once the pulp is removed, is like a pistachio.

There are ginkgo in several Brooklyn neighborhoods; the trees in Prospect Park are on the Southwest side, I think they're between Well House Drive and Center Drive.

http://www.prospectpark.org/visit/interactive_map

A dozen years ago or so a small grove of gingko trees were planted in downtown Fort Worth to honor the husband of a woman active in Fort Worth park issues and politics. I can't remember her name, but I remember when the Park Board accepted the gift. I think they were to be planted between Weatherford and Belknap on an island in the road, over toward I-35. They could be getting big now if they have been cared for.

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 Post subject: Re: Gingko Update
PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2009 11:20 am 
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It's easy enough to Google images of the ginkgo flower parts.

This page has male and female flower photos:
http://k5projects.com/plants/ginkgobiloba/index.htm

Of course, the easiest time to be sure is wait till summer or fall and look at the trees in question. If it has the fruit, it will be the female.

From that page, they provide this image of the fruit:

Image

Here is the anther (male flower):

Image

Here is the pistil (female flower):

Image

These aren't my photos, I have linked to them. The link at the top of the page is the source of these photos. If you actually save them or use them for anything you need to contact the host page and get their permission beyond the usual fair use access.

6-30-2009: Those photos went away. For now, here is an open commons wiki link to a male flower. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/82/Gingko_flowers.jpg/800px-Gingko_flowers.jpg

Here is a url to a sketch of male flowers: http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/images/9/95/Gymnosperms-9.jpg

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Last edited by northwesterner on Tue Jun 30, 2009 6:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Gingko Update
PostPosted: Mon Jun 29, 2009 8:45 pm 
I've been growing a gingko tree in ever larger pots for 10 or so years. I have been afraid to plant it in case it's a female tree, which I don't want to have in my yard. How or when can I tell what it is? It's about 5 ft tall now.


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 Post subject: Re: Gingko Update
PostPosted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 5:11 pm 
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The flower images in my earlier post have vanished from the web. I found a few more and updated that post with links--your tree, if it is old enough to have flowers, should be easy enough to key out.

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