'Like dog poo': Historic N.S. garden gets a smelly surprise from tree

For 40 years, faculty at Nova Scotia's capital of maryland royal stag historical Gardens thought their ginkgo biloba tree was male.

Then they got a very smelly surprise earlier this year.

Male ginkgos are typically the only species of the tree that are sold commercially because female ginkgos produce fruit-like seeds that emit a noticeable odor when they fall to the ground and are crushed under people's feet. 

“It has a really obnoxious smell,” said Trish Fry, manager of the gardens. “Something like dog poo or rancid butter or even compared to vomit. It's just, I guess, pretty brutal.”

Fry knows the smell because the seeds unexpectedly showed up at the park this year for the first time since the tree was planted in the early 1980s.

A visitor pointed out the seeds to staff who initially dismissed the suggestion they were coming from the gingko.

Staff, including the historic gardens’ horticulturalist, took a closer look, however, and determined the tree was in fact female. 

They also learned ginkgo trees can take decades to fully mature, Fry said.

“You've been living with the gingko for 40 years, but then suddenly you realize it isn't quite what you thought it was,” she joked. 

Ashlea Viola, the horticulturalist for the historic gardens, was just as surprised as anyone but said it’s not the first time the wrong species of ginkgo was planted by mistake. 

A Montreal-area resident called on the local municipal government to replace his female-ginko tree that was unknowingly planted on his property and producing the smelly fruit-like seeds.

Viola said the ginkgo is so popular because of its beautiful leaves and colours. The leaves turn from a green to a bright yellow in the autumn before falling all at once and leaving a colour carpet on the ground, she said. 

Ginkgos are known just as much for their resilience as their beauty, Viola said. She said they’re the only species of its kind left. 

“One of the most interesting things about them is that we call them a living fossil,” she said. “The ginkgo tree is the tree that outlived the dinosaurs.”

For those reasons, the manager of the historic gardens said there are no plans to remove the female ginkgo tree.

Fry said luckily the seeds don’t fall during peak tourism season in summer but anyone who visits after they’re on the ground will know what to expect. 

“We'll let people know that they should come and see it and maybe wear nose plugs,” she said. 

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