Letter: Surprising properties of the ginkgo tree

Sir: Like your correspondent David Leighton (3 December), I came home but a year earlier (1980) with a leaf from Goethe's Weimar ginkgo. It must be a hardy tree, for our guide told us with pardonable hyperbole that when he had remarked upon the tree's alleged aphrodisiac qualities to a large group of Japanese visitors, they had immediately stripped it bare. Let us hope it still delights tourists of every nation.

Yours faithfully,

HUMPHREY OSMOND

Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

3 December