ABSTRACT
This chapter provides information on uses, folk medicine, chemistry, germplasm, distribution, ecology, cultivation, harvesting, yields, energy, and biotic factors of Maidenhair Tree. 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. As a delicacy at feasts, the nuts are supposed to aid digestion and alleviate the effects of drinking too much wine. Important in oriental medicine, the ginkgo is now under cultivation as a medicinal plant in the occident. According to Hartwell, the nuts are used in folk remedies for cancer in China, the plant for corns in Japan. In China, macerated in vegetable oil for 100 days, the fruit pulp is traditionally used for asthma, bronchitis, gonorrhea, tuberculosis, and worms.
