For 40 years, staff at Nova Scotia's Annapolis Royal Historic Gardens thought their ginkgo tree was male.

Then they got a very smelly surprise earlier this year.

Male ginkgos are typically the only species of the tree that are sold commercially because female ginkgos produce fruit-like seeds that emit a noticeable odor when they fall to the ground and are crushed under people's feet.

“It has a really obnoxious smell,” said Trish Fry, manager of the gardens. “Something like dog poo or rancid butter or even compared to vomit. It's just, I guess, pretty brutal.”

Fry knows the smell because the seeds unexpectedly showed up at the park this year for the first time since the tree was planted in the early 1980s.

A visitor pointed out the seeds to staff who initially dismissed the suggestion

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