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jerrytheplater wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2023 4:22 pm This is a pretty old thread, but I'll add this in. A friend of mine was a perfumer at a local fragrance company. (...)

Hello Jerry, thanks for unearthing that thread & adding such a nice story.

My humble addition: Of course the Selenicereus are famous for their fragrance. When I return home late on a rainy summer night, and I ask myself who is baking a cake -- then I know one of them has opened something.
I would describe the smell of Sel.grandiflora & donkelaari as a mixture of vanilla & cocoa penetrating the whole of the room. But when you smell at a flower just as you smell at a rose flower, there is next to nothing.
Autumn last year I learned why in a youtube video of the Sukkulentensammlung Zürich (Zurich Succulent Collection, ZH, Switzerland). Urs Eggli, head of the house & author of a couple of lexicons, said that you have to smell at the flower stalk of the Selenicereius flowers. This is where their smell evaporates. Of course I had to test that this summer -- and it's true. Incredible.

daiv wrote: ↑Thu Feb 23, 2012 12:45 am Seriously for cactus flowers, I find that most of them do not smell except for the white, night-flowering species. Of these, they all smell pretty similar to me with a mildly spicy vanilla-ish fragrance.

Why should the day-flowering cacti plainly visible also add smell to attract pollinators? The flowers are spectacular enough. I often wish my eyes could see UV light, that should reveal interesting patterns.
I admit that to me there are two "classes" or types of smell of the night-flowering cacti.
The ones smell very nice & sweet, and the others... how do I say that in English... musty? stale? not really rotten, but not that a standard human would stick the nose inside & smile "...aaaaaahhhh...".
In one of David Attenboroughs Films he explains that the sweet smelling ones attract moths & night-flying butterflies, while the "others" attract bats. That's different tastes.

Besides: The Echinopsis subdenudata on my balcony smells not sweet but refreshingly & quite citrusy.
N.

nachtkrabb wrote: ↑Fri Sep 22, 2023 10:52 pm

jerrytheplater wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2023 4:22 pm This is a pretty old thread, but I'll add this in. A friend of mine was a perfumer at a local fragrance company. (...)

Hello Jerry, thanks for unearthing that thread & adding such a nice story.
N.

It was Anttisepp that started the thread up again. Don't want to steal the credit!!

anttisepp wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2023 1:08 pm Selenicereus grandiflorus has the most powerful and adorable scent IMHO. The same as good old echinopsis in sensu stricto has but much more stronger. Interesting that flower opens in late evening but fragrance appears only in darkness, 2 hours later.

Then: Thank you, anttisepp, for digging up this nice & interesting thread. Sorry, I didn't realize your note was new, it blended in so harmoniously.
Thanks, Jerry, for correcting me. I was a blind mouse.
N.

I like Mammillaria bertholdii's spicy, sweet scent. The flowers smell like cloves and cinnamon.
Lithops gracilidelineata flowers have this very sweet, creamy vanilla scent with notes of coconut.
My clone of Titanopsis hugo-schlechteri 'alboviridis' smells intensely of coconut.
kieth is right, the night blooming Conophytum smell great. My C. minimum 'wittebergense' and C. truncatum 'wiggettiae' have nearly identical scents of intensely sweet honey with berries.
I was surprised when I sniffed the flowers of my Aylostera heliosa this year. They smelled like roasted peanuts! It has flowered in previous years, but I don't recall any scent. Odd.

Aside of E. oxigona that was filling with fragrnce whole my balcony even in the morning after a night of blooming , I have to mention the local E. vivipara. Its flowers spread rose scent at least 1 - 2 meters around it especially if the air is more less still.

E.... who?
Echinopsis oxygona and Escobaria vivipara...?
Thanks, George. Those sound as if I should put them on my wish list.
N.

Scents are a matter of personal opinion since some people are more sensitive to some than others. No plants I know naturally use humans as pollinators so don't produce scent to suit us!

It has been found many plants release their scents only at certain times of the day or night when their pollinators are active. Therefore if sampled at the wrong time you may not discern much or any scent. Obviously wasting scent when their desired pollinators are not active is a drain on the plants resources. Therefore if somebody tells you a plant smells but you can't detect it, maybe you were smelling at the wrong time of day or night?

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-21251-x

https://thesciencebreaker.org/breaks/pl ... es-the-air

https://phys.org/news/2021-09-perfume-r ... %20visited.

https://www.jic.ac.uk/blog/how-plants-u ... llinators/

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 083734.htm

Flowers of one of my Echinocereus viridiflorus (DJF 1288, North East of Saguache County, Colorado, USA) have intense citrusy scent, something between lemon and lime, very pleasing.

Only cacti?

The most impressive smell for me would be the flowers of Eriospermum paradoxum. I can smell the sweet scent from the other side of my (big) greenhouse.

MrXeric wrote: ↑Fri Sep 29, 2023 4:41 am I like Mammillaria bertholdii's spicy, sweet scent. The flowers smell like cloves and cinnamon.

You must be one of the first to know that smell!
My seedlings are not there yet, and probably not for a few years.

Aiko wrote: ↑Mon Nov 13, 2023 2:31 pm You must be one of the first to know that smell!
My seedlings are not there yet, and probably not for a few years.

It's a grafted plant, unfortunately!


It aborts most of its flowers every year, not sure why. At least it does grow!