ABSTRACT
This chapter provides information on the uses, folk medicine, chemistry, germplasm, distribution, ecology, cultivation, harvesting, yields, energy, and biotic factors of Ginkgo. Valued by the Orientals as a sacred tree, for food, medicine, and ritual. Once the acrid nauseous pulp is removed from around them, the seeds can be boiled or roasted to make a delicacy, the nut, with a flavor likened by one author to mild Swiss cheese. Important in oriental medicine, the ginkgo is now under cultivation as a medicinal plant in the occident. Ginkgolic acid is active against the tubercle bacillus. Leaf extracts are used in peripheral arterial circulation problems like arteriosclerotic angiopathy, post-thrombotic syndrome, diabetic vasoconstriction with gangrene and angina, intermittent claudication, Raynaud's disease. Fruit pulp, bitter and astringent, contains a volatile oil and a number of fatty acids from formic to caprylic. Press-juice contains: ginnol; ginkgo; and ginkgolic acid.
