A couple of weeks ago I was walking past the table of one gallon, one yr old seedlings and I smelled lilacs. Not just a whiff, but like springtime in the northern tundra, where lilacs mean springtime, and summer cannot be far behind. I know that I did have a lightly lilac scented-or was it scented of violets? from last yr, but since I regularly move things around, give away nice but very duplicated seedlings, and dump things that get really bad cases of rust, mildew or the spots, esp., if they have not been badly stressed, I had lost track of the lilac scent. And so many nicely scented (colored, shaped, vigorous, healthy etc,etc) seedlings do not seem to hold up their end of the promising starts they waved in front of my face; I would not have been surprised if it only smelled of lilacs between 9am and 10 am when the sun was shining during the 2nd day of bloom if the temps were not over 78F and below 71F and then only if the wind was approx 5mph out of the SE, and I had not forgotten to water the pot it was in for at least the last two months and had not watered it yet that day. Fragrance seems a bit unpredictable and fleeting to me. The flower in question was a single bloom, about the size and shape of an Ebb Tide, but a warm pink with a bit of yellow at its’ base and kind of a silvery pink at the tips. The tag said (Rt 66 x OP) OP. This means it was a seedling from a very nicely shaped, very deep purple that had a bit of a spicy scent of its own that I had pollinated a couple of hips on but forgot to tag, and as a result I picked the hips and a few more for good measure to see what would turn up. This might be one of the ones I applied ELLE pollen to, but also just as easily not. It does not resemble ELLE in the least. There is another yellow next to the OP that is a seedling cross of Honey Bouquet, although it doesn’t have much fragrance itself. It does somewhat resemble that a little bit. What has to combine chemically to produce such a day and night, doesn’t matter what the temps are, smells great ‘til it disintegrates, fragrance that we call lilac? Now it has a few more blooms appearing and I will start paying attention to this rose. Like some people feel about Mr. Lincoln, if this one keeps up its’ end of the bargain, it can do no wrong.
A lilac-scented rose would be very nice. I hope it is not so fleeting in the future.
I have encountered similar mysteries. There was a rose, I think it was Pemberton’s ‘Pax’, that had a musk rose scent in the cool morning, but became tea scented (whatever that means) once the flowers had been warmed by the sun.
The first time I smelled ‘Aptos’, I was reminded of freshly mown hay. On subsequent visits it was sweet, but not so distinctive. And the first time I smelled ‘Smith’s Parish’ (Fortune’s 5 color) I immediately thought “peach”. It doesn’t always smell like that.
The strangest encounter was with ‘Wind Chimes’ at the Burbank House in Santa Rosa, CA. The scent made my teeth itch, which a rose perfume really should not do. A week or so later, while pondering the mysteries of fragrance, I remembered that when I was a child my dentist used a clove or cinnamon flavored topical anesthetic before he jabbed me with THE NEEDLE. The itchy teeth sensation was a distant memory of the dentist’s drill. Fortunately, once I made the conscious connection, I was able to enjoy the scent of ‘Wind Chimes’ without discomfort.
Actually this scent is not fleeting–I just expected it to be. And I went out to sniff around sunset, and it does smell like violets. Nice, sweet, and not overwhelming. Not that there is anything wrong with overwhelming when a rose smells strongly of lilacs. I would love to be able to distinguish more fragrances–everything smells like peaches, raspberries, or that sickening smell of chalky candy. Cloves comes through clearly, as sometimes does cinnemon. I believe my dentist used something banana flavored, so no bad psychic connection there. I was trying to discern the piney linseed fragrance in some offspring of DLfed and what it reminded me of was close to oregano.