Stink amid beauty: A fall paradox

By Myra Bellin

I never give much thought to the trees around the corner until October. Even though the streets would feel barren without them, I have grown accustomed to their presence.

They form the setting for urban living - a lattice for icicles in the winter, a canopy of shade in the summer, dappling the sidewalk with filtered light. But come October, the neighborhood trees can't be ignored - not only because of autumn colors, but because of the malodorous stench from the seeds of the ginkgo biloba. I have such a difficult time accepting that a tree so lovely is responsible for the foul odor lingering on the sidewalks every fall. It is a fact I must relearn each year.

"Guess there was a big party nearby last night," I'll announce on a crisp, cool October morning, returning from a trot around the block with the dog. "It smells like more than one person got sick."

"Are you sure it's not the ginkgos?" my husband asks; instantly, I know he's right. The butyric acid in the fleshy pulp surrounding the ginkgo seed or nut is the same chemical that makes us gag when we smell vomit, and October is the time of year when these apricot-like packages fall to the ground.

Even though I grew up in Philadelphia, I became acquainted with the ginkgo only as an adult, living in Center City. None grew along the sidewalks of my old neighborhood. Instead, October meant piles of burgundy maple leaves crunching underfoot and burnt-orange oak leaves scattered on the sidewalk. The acorns littering the ground conformed to the general notion of what a nut should be - small, hard, and most important, odorless - an object any squirrel could proudly clutch in its jaws and scamper off to bury. But the nuts of the ginkgo tree flout the stereotype. They are seeds surrounded by a fleshy, pulpy mass with a noxious aroma.

The trees themselves are stately and tall with graceful, fan-shaped leaves. Considered "living fossils," they have been around for millions of years. It is sobering to realize that dinosaurs roamed the earth among ginkgo trees. Not exactly the same trees on my block, but close relatives.

I wonder if William Hamilton realized, in 1784, when he brought the first ginkgo biloba tree to the United States for his garden in Philadelphia, that he was importing a tree of contradictions: beautiful one minute, stinky the next. Perhaps not, for the first ginkgo here was male; it is only female trees that produce the fleshy nuts. The variety is hearty - resistant to most diseases and tolerant of urban pollution - so it has been widely planted in Philadelphia and other urban areas throughout the country. Some cities do their best to plant only male trees. For Philadelphia, it is, alas, too late.

Ginkgo leaves turn a bright, rich yellow in the fall. The color change startles me some years because it happens so quickly. For several days, one-way streets become golden tunnels that are formed by leaning ginkgo branches meeting overhead. That is exactly the time to remember that soon the streets will reek as if covered with rancid butter, for the golden leaves presage ripe nuts falling to the ground. As cars run over them and pedestrians smash them underfoot, they create a slippery, smelly mess.

Even though I have learned that ginkgo nuts are a delicacy in many Asian cuisines, I still wonder how people tolerate the fresh ones long enough to collect and prepare them. I've seen Asian women with graying hair tied back in chignons don gloves (raw nuts can irritate skin) and stroll through the piles of yellow leaves in Washington Square, eyes on the ground, occasionally stooping to examine a ginkgo nut. If it passes inspection, they plop it into a shopping bag. The kernels are roasted for snacks or used in stir-fries. They reputedly taste like chestnuts. Maybe I'll try some this year - prepackaged.

This fall, once the ginkgo goes golden, I will try to remember to look down instead of up. Perhaps the extract of ginkgo biloba leaves, which I assiduously swallow in pill form every morning to improve my memory, will help. And if I do end up in the basement at the laundry tub, scraping ginkgo goop from the ridges of my sneakers with a stiff brush, I will do my best to gracefully accept that nothing is perfect. Between quietly muttered obscenities, I will repeat the mantra that even roses have thorns and that a week or two of smelly, slippery days is not a huge price to pay for a year of quiet beauty.