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Yes, several years ago I saw a very interesting set of behaviors in  
St. Louis when a street was planted with (yup) female gingkos.   
People would stop, check their shoes, and look around.  It was really  
pretty amusing.
Beryl

On Dec 22, 2006, at 10:20 AM, Karen Reeds wrote:

> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology  
> Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related  
> institutions.
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>
>> The gingko tree produces fruit with a rather foul/poo-ey/rotting  
>> garbage
>> smell.
>
> One of my students in Botany 101, University of Michigan, long long  
> ago, described it more precisely as the smell of dog-sh_t  (my  
> email insists on euphemisms). He grew up in Detroit and remembered  
> a street where the female trees had been planted by mistake.  
> (Almost all the gingko trees you'll find in cities are males.) I'm  
> sure the U of M herbarium or arboretum could help you locate some.
>
> Another possibility--the sprays that emergency teams use to train  
> dogs to find dead bodies. I gather from a friend who did this that  
> there is spray with cadaverine in it.
>
>
> Karen Reeds
> -- 
> Karen Reeds, PhD, FLS
> Guest Curator
> Come into a New World: Linnaeus & America
> Exhibition, February 15-June 30, 2007
> American Swedish Historical Museum, Philadelphia  215--389-1776
> http://www.americanswedish.org/
>
> [log in to unmask]
> 609--279-9420
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Beryl Rosenthal
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Dir. of Education and Public Programs
MIT Museum
265 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02139
(617)452-2111 (t)
(617)253-8994 (f)



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