MUSK’S PERFUME

Hokitika Guardian, 9 May 1931, Page 8

MUSK’S PERFUME

STILL LOST. Dr A. W. Will, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Ims drawn the attention of the British Association to the tragedy of the mu s k piant, which “a tew years before the war quite suddenly lost its scent,” and has never re gained .it. Dr Hill cannot even get a plant of seed from the borne of the musk in British Columbia which retains the oneefamiliar odour. Why did these plants, in all parts of the world, simultaneously lose their scent? It is, Dr Hill thinks, a pretty problem which the ecologist and the chemist might well take in band.

The. loss of the scent is only too wet! known to those who once grew musk Twenty year s ago the plant was common in cottage windows and its lrag. ranee pervaded greenhouses. Its yellow flower is itself quite attractive, but it was the odour that really commended it. Suddenly reports began to come in to horticultural societies from all quarters that the musk smelt no longer, arid, on jnquirio s being made in the plant’s native habitat, the same phenomenon was recorded. Nor was it a case of new music plants coming in that lacked odour; tlie old ones had been deprived of it.

Letters are constantly being received by the Royal Horticultural Society that tlie plant has been found to smell again, but the general view is that though mu der certain accidental conditions mmc scent rimy have lieen noticed, there is no accepted evidence that tlie musk has become its old self again. “1 well remember the disappearance of the scent,” said Mr J. L. Norts. the curator of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Regent’s Park, to a London Observer correspondent. “We have grown musk here for many years, and grow it still, hut it has no scent. Somebody once offered £5 for a musk plant that would smell, hut tlie prize Ims never been claimed. “1 remember when nearly every cottage had a musk plant. Pieces of root would be transferred from one cottage to another, so keen were the people Now you may travel jn the country all day and never see a musk, 'though it is sun inite common" in France.” A- ked what he thought of tlie proposal that an investigation should be made Mr North said lie wa s not sanguine as to the result. He -himself lias made attempts, to recapture the scent of the musk in RcgentVPark, and lie showed the record of bis experiments. “You have nothing to work upon—no scented musk to guide you—not even in tlie nlace where it oEginally came from in 182 G lie said. ‘We never knew what mrt of the i.msk .it was that produced the smell, though from the fact that the smell was most apparent when the plant was rough I think the smell was in the hair,” Mr North was asked if the statement' sometimes made that the rose, the iolet, the wallflower; land the mjgnon•tte' lacked t'ieii* : old fragrance threw

'!•• light on thcGsubject; “No.” lie replied. “They are not parallel cases. The loss of scent by these flowers is explained simply by the fact that w<> chose to cultivate plants for qualities other than scent. Cultivators pay attention to size and beauty, and; in doing that they cause tlie flowers to lo: e scent. The object of scent is to attract insects, and when the florist takes up the job tlie plant does not w.ant insects, and therefore docs not waste its time producing frag'a nee.'