What I Nose About Natives
by Joy Buslaff

ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED: 1997 Summer

Native plant enthusiasts have long contended that the thousands of species of native American plants that once blanketed this continent were in every way as beautiful as those grown by nature or hybridizers elsewhere in the world. The litany of benefits attributed to maintaining the native landscape--species preservation, regional character, food and nesting sites for critters, pharmaceuticals, erosion and flood control, yah-dah, yah-dah--don't usually included the less politically charged notion of perfume. Oh, not the glass-countered, may-I-spritz-you, $50-an-ounce kind--I mean the kind you wait an entire winter to meet again outdoors. No 21st century guru has to tell you about aromatherapy! You've known about that nasal pathway to pleasure since you first grabbed an apple tree branch in spring and pulled the blossoms to your face.

Have you bent over to take in the scent of a Wild Rose (Rosa spp.) ? Have ripe Wild Strawberries (Fragaria virginiana), heated in the afternoon sun, intoxicated you with their sweetness before they even made it to your mouth? Do you know the aroma of a haymow, and would you believe me if I told you there is a Hay-Scented Fern (Dennstaedtia punctilobula) that will grow in sun or shade? And the smell of a theatre? Prairie Dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis), a clump-forming grass, when gone to flower is said to smell like popcorn or cilantro, although I haven't been able to pick up on either. Well, that's the first thing about odors. We detect and interpret them on a personal basis. My husband and I find the olfactory experience of gathering Bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) and Gray-headed Coneflower (Ratibida pinnata) seed to be positively heady, and we draw in the musky smells whenever we go near the prairie seed collection bags.

One can't help but have kitchen thoughts when finding the Allium species: Wild Onion, Leek, or Garlic. And, while one is led to think that it is a culinary resource, Wild Ginger (Asarum canadense) is really just a handsome groundcover that releases a gingery smell when crushed.

Even a stink, such as comes from Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus), can retrieve happy memories of childhood pranks. The evergreen pungency of Christmas morning came back to me recently when I opened a shipping box of Tamarack trees (Larix laricina). The Sweet Pepperbush shrub (Clethra alnifolia) that arrived at the same time will take a few years to develop the intensely spicy flower clusters the catalog promised.

Hearsay and field guides tell me there are other good smells to be had from False Lily-of-the-Valley (Maianthemum canadense), Water Lily (Nymphaea odorata), Sweet Woodruff (Galium odoratum), and Fragrant Sumac (Rhus aromatica). But I'm in no hurry to sniff the anise-scented roots of some Sweet Cicely (Osmorhiza claytoni), since that licorice smell doesn't appeal to me. I do, however, enjoy the smell of Yarrow (Achillea lanulosa) is native but the naturalized alien, A. millefolium, is more commonly found) and have used it as a lawn substitute inside a brick-lined path that skirts my herb garden. And, "What grows in your herb garden?", you ask. Well, among the other conventional herbs you'll find some of those old native plants again: New Jersey Tea (Ceanothus americanus) and Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea). Their aroma floats to the nose by way of a teacup.

Joy Buslaff gardens on a half-acre in southern Wisconsin. She is the editor of the Wild Ones Handbook, available with membership to Wild Ones--Natural Landscapers, Ltd., PO Box 23576, Milwaukee, WI 53223-0576. Your $20/year dues includes bi-monthly newsletters, yard tours, lecture and slide programs, seed-gatherings and plant rescues through chapters in the Chicago area and other states. vvv TWG Editor: A few more ideas from Louise Beebe Wilder's The Fragrant Path: Sugar Maple flowers, Clover, Sweet Flag (Acorus calamus), the seeds of Columbine (Aquilegia canadensis), Milkweed (Asclepsias syriaca), Paw Paw, the bark of Sweet Birch (Betula lenta), Sassafras, Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis), the leaves of Hickory (Carya ovata), Witchhazel (Hamamelis), Shooting Stars, Dutchman's Breeches (Dicentra cucularia), Spicebush (Lindera benzoin), Grapes, the Plums, Purple Prairie Clover (Petalostemum), Black Walnut, and Sweetgum. Personally, I've never smelled any smell on Purple Prairie Clover or Shooting Stars, but I'll have to lean closer and inhale more deeply. If you know of other fragrant wild plants, please send a note or call TWG. We'd love to add to this list!

(TOP OF PAGE)