Mystery Of Ginkgo Stink Epidemic Solved
This past week, two prominent web-first web-only outfits vented over the pervasive poop smell invading major power corridors of our city. The poop smell comes from ginkgo trees. Wonkette was the first to bitch. DCist questioned its army of readers about it. Readers described the smell as "vomit," and referred to the trees as "jizz trees." Awesome.
Cap Hill and Dupont Circle have been overrun with the jizz. The obsession was more than justified. And this morning, the Post has a great reported expose on Ginkgogate. Apparently, arborists have made the problem worse. In an attempt to mask the smell, they injected 1,000 ginkgo trees with a chemical to prevent them from producing the smelly fruit. They failed.
In fact, the arborists made the smell worse:
"The chemical didn't work, for reasons that scientists still don't understand. Now, instead of less ginkgo stink, Washington has its worst case in years — a bumper crop of nastiness that is studding sidewalks and sliming dress shoes from Capitol Hill to Kalorama."
5:04 pm
A guest poster wrote a great piece about the trees in Adams Morgan on Dec.1:
http://www.princeofpetworth.com/2008/12/matt-laments-gingko-trees/
8:13 pm
If lazy people swept their sidewalks, they wouldn't have this shit all over their houses. How fucking lazy can people be? You have shit balls on the sidewalk in front of your house or your business, but you're too lazy to sweep up the shit balls, yet not too lazy to bitch about it.
Fucking people - can't live with them, can't live w/o them [although it'd be great to try].
9:25 pm
Thanks for the tip PoP.
11:31 pm
Hire someone to sweep the fruit and sell it on the traditional medicine market. It's a win-win.
12:03 pm
"If lazy people swept their sidewalks, they wouldn’t have this shit all over their houses. How fucking lazy can people be? You have shit balls on the sidewalk in front of your house or your business, but you’re too lazy to sweep up the shit balls, yet not too lazy to bitch about it."
Calm down, gonzo. Maybe people don't know that the trees/berries are the culprit?
3:39 pm
I live on a block that has nothing but gingko trees. You'd have to be a complete moron to attribute the smell to anything but the gingko fruit.
I am lucky enough to have a non-fruit bearing gingko in front of my house. My neighbors who are not so lucky do sweep the areas in front of their houses. The problem is gingko fruit that falls in between sweepings (overnight or during working hours) that people tread on and smush between the bricks; fruit that falls into the gutters and is smashed by cars; and fruit that falls into areas between houses or in front of multi-unit rental dwellings. That fruit then gets tracked up and down the block. And yes, it is disgusting.
People should continue to sweep in front of their properties and elsewhere on a volunteer basis, but as for the rest, the city should hire some people to sweep. Aren't we supposed to be creating jobs? Fine. Hire some damn sweepers.
More jobs + less fruit = everyone happy.
If there is a use for the fruit, someone should say so. If there is a monetary value to it I am sure the fruit will disappear instantaneously.
5:03 pm
Good points. The fruit does get stuck to your shoes and gets tracked everywhere. Ginkgo slime is a major problem! I just doubt that the city will get a public works project going to sweep up the ginkgo droppings.
7:10 pm
"If there is a use for the fruit, someone should say so. If there is a monetary value to it I am sure the fruit will disappear instantaneously"
There is a market for this. The fruit- not just the leaves- are important and used by traditional Chinese. I used to watch the old ladies collect ginkgo fruit at GW in the '90s. But maybe the supply exceeds the demand this year.
10:02 am
"a great reported expose"?
12:16 pm
Hey grammar troll: freshman in high school?
1:19 pm
"I live on a block that has nothing but gingko trees. You’d have to be a complete moron to attribute the smell to anything but the gingko fruit."
See, I don't live on a street full of the trees. In fact, while downtown last week, a friend and I wondered what this heinous smell was we walked into. We attributed it to vomit or bad dairy. I had no idea it was tree berries.
An idiot I was not. Thanks to the articles about the scourge I and others now know. But since there are still "idiots" out there, don't count on everyone knowing. Not yet, anyway.
11:19 am
the smell is why the male trees, which don't produce fruit, are usually the only ones planted. if you don't want stinky fruit, don't plant female ginkgos. as for value, ginkgo nuts are great sliced in stir fries if you wash off the stinky apricot-looking outside.