BS3
Abominable Showman
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2021
- Messages
- 1,839
This is a nice little botanical 'mystery' that I remember reading about years ago, and which was well known in the 1930s.
In the early 19th century the seed of a species of mimulus was collected in British Columbia by the botanist David Douglas. A small, unremarkable looking yellow flower, it was described and named moschatus in 1828 by John Lindley from seed grown in England. Lindley described the plant as having an extremely strong sweet musky scent and it went on to become hugely popular in Victorian England, with pots of "muskflower" kept on every cottage windowsill (as well as smelling nice, it was supposed to repel flies).
Anyway, the story goes that in 1912, or 1913, or 1914, or 1916 (different dates are given), it was suddenly realised that the muskflower had completely lost its scent. Various people wrote about it in horticultural journals, but it seemed that no scented plants could be found anywhere in the country. Even more strangely, when Sir Arthur Hill, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, attempted to find out whether scented plants could be found in British Columbia, or in New Zealand where it had been introduced, he was told that no scented plants could be found there either, and even plants growing in the wild were unscented too. It seemed that all plants across the world had inexplicably lost their fragrance at the same time, and this is how you will find the story told in old gardening books.
There were a lot of attempts to explain why this might have happened. In an ascending Fortean order, some of these included:
- That the perfume was the result of some kind of disease or parasite that had been eradicated
- That people had lost the ability to smell it
- That the loss of smell was caused by new-fangled radio waves (a sort of equivalent of the 5G thing perhaps)
- That it was something to do with the War
In reality, although still unexplained, there are a couple of things that might explain it. It was realised that the botanist who originally collected the plant hadn't mentioned a smell, so it might have been the case that most wild plants were already unscented - English plants just happened to have been descended from an unusually scented individual. If at a later date, someone had imported additional seeds from Canada, the gene for a strong scent might have quickly become bred out.
Another possibility was that in 1877, an amateur gardener in Leicester had managed to cross the muskflower with a close relative, mimulus luteus. The plant had larger, more attractive flowers but little scent and became a popular bedding plant for a few years in the 1880s under the name "Harrison's Musk". Was it possible that Harrison's Musk had, before fading into obscurity, sneakily hybridized with the rest of the population?
In the early 19th century the seed of a species of mimulus was collected in British Columbia by the botanist David Douglas. A small, unremarkable looking yellow flower, it was described and named moschatus in 1828 by John Lindley from seed grown in England. Lindley described the plant as having an extremely strong sweet musky scent and it went on to become hugely popular in Victorian England, with pots of "muskflower" kept on every cottage windowsill (as well as smelling nice, it was supposed to repel flies).
Anyway, the story goes that in 1912, or 1913, or 1914, or 1916 (different dates are given), it was suddenly realised that the muskflower had completely lost its scent. Various people wrote about it in horticultural journals, but it seemed that no scented plants could be found anywhere in the country. Even more strangely, when Sir Arthur Hill, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, attempted to find out whether scented plants could be found in British Columbia, or in New Zealand where it had been introduced, he was told that no scented plants could be found there either, and even plants growing in the wild were unscented too. It seemed that all plants across the world had inexplicably lost their fragrance at the same time, and this is how you will find the story told in old gardening books.
There were a lot of attempts to explain why this might have happened. In an ascending Fortean order, some of these included:
- That the perfume was the result of some kind of disease or parasite that had been eradicated
- That people had lost the ability to smell it
- That the loss of smell was caused by new-fangled radio waves (a sort of equivalent of the 5G thing perhaps)
- That it was something to do with the War
In reality, although still unexplained, there are a couple of things that might explain it. It was realised that the botanist who originally collected the plant hadn't mentioned a smell, so it might have been the case that most wild plants were already unscented - English plants just happened to have been descended from an unusually scented individual. If at a later date, someone had imported additional seeds from Canada, the gene for a strong scent might have quickly become bred out.
Another possibility was that in 1877, an amateur gardener in Leicester had managed to cross the muskflower with a close relative, mimulus luteus. The plant had larger, more attractive flowers but little scent and became a popular bedding plant for a few years in the 1880s under the name "Harrison's Musk". Was it possible that Harrison's Musk had, before fading into obscurity, sneakily hybridized with the rest of the population?
