I'm going to go on record here... go out on a limb, so to speak: I don't like ginkgo trees. Sure, they've got cool looking leaves and an interesting history (they were thought to be extinct for centuries, until a couple of small groves were found in the Zhejiang province in Eastern China, where they had been tended to by monks for over a thousand years; they're also called a "living fossil," as they were once common but disappeared from the fossil record around two million years ago), but here in Minneapolis they're planting the things everywhere, and in my opinion they're just plain ugly.
And now I've got another, very visceral, reason to hate 'em. Today I was taking a pleasant walk through my neighborhood that was nausiatingly interrupted by a stench that I can only describe as -- pardon my English -- what you'd get if a teenage boy wore the same pair of socks for a month and then wiped his butt with them before throwing them in his laundry bin. This was two hours ago, and the smell still lingers! Blech!
The deal is that you're only supposed to plant male ginkgo trees, because females produce this attractive yet awfully fragrant fruit. Apparently a few ladies got by on this particular street, and I don't envy the folks who have to live next to them. As I used to say in fourth grade, girls stink!
