As a note with respect to cleaning ginkgo seeds, I became alarmed by one cleaning session, and after that started to wear gloves. What happened was that I let the seeds dry out before removing that creamy-orange-tan (not sure how to describe the color) outer coating on the seeds (the part that stinks). That coating had become extremely dry, kind of hardened, very shriveled. I tried softening a bit with water soak, but then began just using my hands and fingers to rub off that coating. Whatever is in that part of the plant really did a number on my hands. Within a few days layers of skin from my palms began erupting and shedding off. They were also a bit sore, and it wasn't a pleasant experience. It took about two weeks or more to clear up. I'm thinking this only happened because of the friction I had to put into rubbing the coating off the seeds, but I didn't care for it to happen again, so as I said, now I wear gloves.
