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Elisabeth C. Miller Library

Keyword: Aromatic plants

aromatic Devil’s club

I came across a reference to the aromatic scent of Devil’s club, and wondered which part of the plant is fragrant, and how it is used.

Despite its daunting common name and repellent species name, the wood of Oplopanax horridus, particularly the inner bark, is said to be sweetly aromatic. According to an article, “Devil’s Club (Oplopanax horridus): An Ethnobotanical Review” from HerbalGram (Spring 2014, Issue 62), the Makah tribe has used an unspecified part of the plant much as one would use talcum powder for infants. This is elaborated upon by Erna Gunther’s Ethnobotany of Western Washington (1973), which says that Green River peoples dry the bark and pulverize it for use as a deodorant.

Other tribes have used an infusion of the bark as a skin wash. Nancy J. Turner’s Ancient Pathways, Ancestral Knowledge (2014), mentions that “bathing in a solution of devil’s club is said to make one strong,” and so the plant might be used prior to contests of strength or hunting.

[By coincidence, there is a common perfume ingredient with a very similar name, opopanax, but it is derived neither from Opopanax (in the Apiaceae) nor Oplopanax (in the Araliaceae). Some say its source is the resin of Commiphora guidottii (a plant in the Apiaceae that is native to Ethiopia and Somalia), and goes by the names scented myrrh, bissabol, and habak hadi. Others say it is derived from the flowers of sweet acacia, Vachellia farnesiana (Fabaceae).]

 

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the plant source of fragrant oud

I am reading a book set in India, and the word ‘oud’ is used to describe a substance used for fragrance inside a house. Is it from a plant? Is it related to the musical instrument?

Oud is one name for a fragrance derived from an evergreen tree called Aquilaria, also known as aloeswood, aloes, eaglewood, or the Wood of the Gods. There are a number of species, and several are listed as threatened or endangered (primarily because of overharvesting to meet high demand). The tree is called agar in Hindi (agarbati, the word for incense, means ‘lighted aloeswood’). Small chips of the wood are burned to release the resinous aroma, and have the added benefit of repelling mosquitos. The resin can also be processed into an essential oil. The fragrance has been used (in ritual and as a sign of status) since as far back in time as 1400 B.C.E., in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, China, and India. It is mentioned in the Hebrew Song of Songs and Psalms, in ancient Indian Vedas, in the Materia Medica of Dioscorides (65 C.E.), and Buddhist and Islamic texts.

Stress or damage to the tree is the reason the wood is so aromatic. According to Elise Pearlstine’s Scent: A Natural History of Perfume (Yale University, 2022), “they are not important timber trees […] but sometimes a tiny invading fungus, a small injury, or perhaps a boring insect sets in motion a mysterious protective process that produces a dark and aromatic resinous feathered pattern within the living wood.”

The word ‘oud literally means wood, and it is also the source of the name of the wooden stringed instrument. In fact, the English word lute and its European variants are also derived from ‘oud, by combining the Arabic definite article al with ‘oud.

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Camphor wood chips and safety

A friend gave me a small bag of camphor wood chips. I have them in my car and like the smell. Someone told me that camphor can be toxic. Is is toxic to breathe or to burn, to humans or to plants? Is it safe to just keep in my car and enjoy the aroma?

 

Cinnamomum camphora (source of camphor wood) is in the Laurel family. According to Toxic Plants of North America (Burrows & Tyrl, 2013), “few toxicologic problems have been associated with the genus. However, when a camphor tree was planted in an aviary, 49 budgerigars died within 24 hours, apparently from its noxious fumes.” As implied by its common name [camphor tree], all parts of the tree contain camphor. The intensity is greater in the leaves than in the wood. The tree’s toxic properties have been known since the late 1800s, and most exposures are non-fatal and involve accidental ingestion of liniments that contain the oil from the plant. When inhaled, camphor is usually a mild irritant (perhaps not so mild at all if you are a bird!) and nervous system stimulant. It also contains low levels of toxic alkaloids.

If you wish to err on the side of caution, I would suggest not breathing the fumes, burning the wood, or using it in the garden (unless you are trying to suppress weeds, though the tree itself is considered a weedy species in some parts of the world, such as Australia). As you probably know, people have used camphor-based preparations in herbal and traditional medicine.

About medicinal uses and associated risks

About the tree

About the wood

The article “Camphor—A Fumigant during the Black Death and a Coveted Fragrant Wood in Ancient Egypt and Babylon—A Review,” by Weiyang Chen, Ilze Vermaak and Alvaro Viljoen, offers a historical perspective, and does mention that the tree may have some phytotoxic/allelopathic properties as well (toxic to other plants).

Abstract:
“The fragrant camphor tree (Cinnamomum camphora) and its products, such as camphor oil, have been coveted since ancient times. Having a rich history of traditional use, it was particularly used as a fumigant during the era of the Black Death and considered as a valuable ingredient in both perfume and embalming fluid. Camphor has been widely used as a fragrance in cosmetics, as a food flavourant, as a common ingredient in household cleaners, as well as in topically applied analgesics and rubefacients for the treatment of minor muscle aches and pains. Camphor, traditionally obtained through the distillation of the wood of the camphor tree, is a major essential oil component of many aromatic plant species, as it is biosynthetically synthesised; it can also be chemically synthesised using mainly turpentine as a starting material. Camphor exhibits a number of biological properties such as insecticidal, antimicrobial, antiviral, anticoccidial, anti-nociceptive, anticancer and antitussive activities, in addition to its use as a skin penetration enhancer. However, camphor is a very toxic substance and numerous cases of camphor poisoning have been documented. This review briefly summarises the uses and synthesis of camphor and discusses the biological properties and toxicity of this valuable molecule.”

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The Scentual Garden: Exploring the World of Botanical Fragrance

[The Scentual Garden] cover

“Green, resinous, camphorous, nutmeg, a scant suggestion of lemon rind.” Ken Druse has a very keen nose. In The Scentual Garden, he undertakes an adventure, as he puts it, to classify botanical fragrance. Druse wants to give gardeners and designers an expanded lexicon for scent that equals the rich vocabulary we already have for color, texture and form. It won’t surprise anyone familiar with his other books that The Scentual Garden is ‘coffee table’ quality, with heavy paper, lots of color photographs of plants in the landscape and of composed portraits of plants on a solid color background. It’s pleasurable to simply flip through the pages for Ellen Hoverkamp’s photography alone. However, once you start reading the text of this reference book you will ask yourself, do I get “nutmeg and a scant suggestion of lemon rind” from my rosemary shrub?

Druse devised 12 “botanical fragrance categories.” Most are obvious and self-explanatory, such as fruity, medicinal, spice and forest. Others are more esoteric and mysterious, like heavy or indolic, which is described as “mothballs, hot garbage, overripe fruit, excrement…” Eww! Apparently some pleasant-smelling flowers, like gardenia, can have a secondary background scent of indole. I say “apparently” because when I smelled my own gardenia in flower just now I didn’t get anything indolic. But smell is deeply personal, as Druse fully explains in the opening chapters. I grew two varieties of heliotrope this past summer. One smelled like delicious vanilla/cherry pie as expected while the other smelled like the horrible synthetic fragrance used to clean public restrooms. My husband thought of urinal cake. I’ll not grow that cultivar again!

Each category includes an explanation with sample plants, followed by encyclopedia entries for more plants in the category. Plant entries describe the scent, use in the garden, cultivation tips, sometimes a bit of history, and sometimes recommended cultivars. Druse writes with honesty and insight, from personal experience of decades of knowing plants. After reading The Scentual Garden, I’m more likely to sniff my plants and ponder in which category they belong and whether there is a hint of indole in my star jasmine.

Published in the November 2020 Leaflet, Volume 7, Issue 11.

Fragrant Hydrangea

I want to add a hydrangea to my garden but I would prefer one that is also fragrant. Are there varieties that have a noticeable pleasant scent?

 

There are some species and cultivated varieties of Hydrangea that are reported to be fragrant. Bear in mind that everyone’s sense of smell is different. I recommend seeking out examples when they are in flower and doing a sniff test in nurseries, gardens, or large parks and arboreta with a good selection. The ones that have a fragrant reputation are:

  • Hydrangea quercifolia: the smell is a rich honey-vanilla to my nose. This shrub is also a wonderful magnet for honeybees, bumblebees, pollen wasps, and syrphid flies. Its inner flowers are fertile, while the more dramatic outer sepals are sterile. Cultivated hydrangeas have been bred to emphasize the sterile florets, while wild hydrangeas tend to have fewer of these and are more useful for pollinators. In my garden, all the pollinator activity is humming along on the fertile inner flowers beneath those sterile four-petaled parts of the inflorescence. The showy parts of a hydrangea so prized by humans for their beauty are not what interests the pollinators .
  • Hydrangea angustipetala and its cultivar (‘Golden Crane,’ also called ‘MonLongShou’): said to smell strongly like jasmine or sweet alyssum; of the species, Dan Hinkley says: “The deeply scalloped sepals of the infertile florets surround a disk of striking chartreuse fertile flowers while emitting a faint but beguiling fragrance.” [Horticulture, Jun/Jul2009, Vol. 106, Issue 5]
  • Hydrangea scandens: Dan Hinkley says: “As its name implies, it can be a sprawling shrub but far from what would be considered disheveled. The branches possess a pleasing burgundy-brown color and the lacy cream-colored flowers pack a powerful fragrance during March and April. Hydrangea scandens ‘Fragrant Splash’ adds a bonus of variegated foliage.” [Ibid.]
  • Some hybrids of Hydrangea macrophylla x Hydrangea angustipetala
  • Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Ayesha’: “one of the only Hydrangeas to have a delicate fragrance in bloom” [Great Plant Picks profile]
  • Hydrangea anomala ssp. petiolaris (a climbing hydrangea)
  • Hydrangea paniculata: “slight floral scent” or “mild fruity fragrance”

Close relations in hydrangea family:

  • Pileostegia viburnoides: “In late summer, frilly cymes of heavily-scented flowers erupt amidst its foliage, filling the air of our woodland drive with a delicious aroma of honey. Not surprisingly, honey bees are highly attracted to the flowers that rely entirely on scent.” [Heronswood blog, August 29, 2018] However, not all noses smell alike. An article in Arnoldia [June 2, 1964] says “The floral odor is described as ‘fragrant’ or ‘ill-smelling.'”
  • Decumaria barbara (woodvamp): a climber in the Hydrangea family, native to swampy areas of the southeastern U.S., with fertile flowers that are slightly fragrant or fragrant, depending on the source.

Based on the research above, Hydrangea quercifolia and Hydrangea angustipetala cultivars seem like the best choices.

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