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This causes some interesting knock on effects on society:

1. more pollen (as mentioned in the article), leading to more more allergies, leading to more allergy med sales

2. no free fruit growing in the streets for kids/others to eat healthy snacks (visitors to some “old world” towns admire this about them). The fruit “littering the landscape” being the stated reason for not planting female trees, means non biodegradable trash from chip bags and other disposable wrappers litter our cities instead

Some fruit trees are indeed planted in urban areas, and the city planners are always very careful to plant varieties that have been bred for tough, bitter, inedible fruits. There's a two-block underpass near me with rows of citrus; imagine if they were sweet oranges.

I bet the city would get sued if somebody ate a sweet orange and got sick

Saw a thorough debunking of this on twitter by a crop scientist: https://twitter.com/sarahtaber_bww/status/142301601013164851...

Huh, the article is missing ginkgo as an example. Mulberries are merely messy in the ground. Ginkgo nuts smell terrible.

Did you see the photo on the right hand side?

Botanical Sexism