22-July London in July: A Symphony of Scents

Walking around London streets, the heavy, slightly fishy smell of privet flowers is now common. Walking in the countryside this is replaced by the vanilla scent of traveller’s joy. Thinking of London’s medieval pilgrims, Gerard said traveller’s joy was common in every hedgerow from Gravesend to Canterbury, which may account for its name.

Pilgrims put the scented leaves of mugwort in their shoes prior to walking long distances. Strewing herbs used at the time included balms, germanders, pennyroyal as well as the scented sedge acorus and sweet galingale. Broad beans were grown then much as they are now. Their heavy sweet slightly balsam scent when grown as a crop can carry for a mile and was thought to encourage fantasies in dreams. These would be more intense if you fell asleep near the field where they were growing.

Wild orchids this month have their own varied set of scents. Frog and musk orchids smell of musky honey, lesser butterfly is a delicate vanilla and fragrant orchids smell of cloves. The greater butterfly orchid is the one to try and track down as they smell of jonquils, but only at night. They are now very rare, but one or two may still be hanging on in the woods around Westerham. Evening primrose, soapwort and white clover all have sweet scents. The lack of musk in clover results in the honey being sweet rather than musky. Field scabious also smells of honey and buddleia is even said to smell of warm honey.

Two other groups of plants rich in scents flowering now are the mints Mentha spp and the St. John’s worts Hypericum spp. Mints are known for the sharpness of their scents. In herb gardens they can range from peppermint and spearmint to eau de cologne. Wild mints also have a wide range of scents. Apple mint smells of apples and water mint is minty with an orange edge.

Other relatives such as catmint have some lemon mixed in with the mint. Catmint is well known for sending cats into paroxysms, but it is less well known that hangmen in the past ate it to stiffen their resolve. Among the St John’s worts, Tutsan and hairy St John’s wort have resinous smells and marsh St John’s wort has more spice.

There are always disagreeable smells and this month is no exception. Umbellifers as a group have the reputation for being ‘evil smelling’ and at times even nauseous. This month the main offenders are fool’s parsley (mousy), Astrantia and pepper saxifrage (foetid) and the bruised leaves of spignel smell of turpentine. Other umbellifers with more interesting fragrances include water dropwort (port) and stone parsley (petrol with a little nutmeg).

It is in the garden the really big scents of July are to be found, especially among the lilies, honeysuckles, roses, jasmines and passion flowers. Campions, pinks and carnations are always associated with cloves. Some snapdragons and wild bladder campion throw their soft clove scent but only in the evening. Old roses, especially the gallicas, bourbons, damasks, albas, cabbage and moss roses are all still highly scented. However, rose gardens are not quite as scented now as they were as many of the single flowering species are now going over. The repeat-flowering species are continuing to flower but they are generally noted for their lack of scent.

In herb gardens and downland marjoram is very much in flower, with its familiar scent which includes some camphor. Fennel has its familiar aniseed odour. Fennel seeds used to be collected and eaten to assuage hunger on fasting days. Other plants are noted for their fruity scents. Wild clary Salvia verbenaca has leaves which emit a pineapple scent. They were used to scent jellies and added to medieval scent bags. A garden form of clary S. sclarea has leaves which smell of Muscat grapes. An oil was made from its leaves, which was occasionally an ingredient of vermouth. Another garden Salvia S. microphylla has leaves that smell of redcurrants. More unusual scents in gardens are Melianthus (peanuts), Oleraria (sweet sultanas), Candytuft (old socks) and Drimys (milk of magnesia). Elecampagne has remarkable roots which, when dried, smell first of bananas and then later of violets.

The most unforgettable scents of the month probably belong to the lilies. To some extent, this may be due to the presence of indole, which is the active ingredient in civet. Civet is one of the bases of the perfume industry. Words like ‘overwhelming’ and ‘breathtaking’ are used to describe lily scents, yet the humble wild heath bedstraw Galium saxatile which is found all over London wherever there is an acid soil has the same powerful smell.

Gardens recommended now for their scented plants would have to include Kew Gardens, Ravenscourt Park and the Geoffrye Museum garden. The last garden having the advantage of allowing you to rub some of the leaves.