15-Aug Late Summer's Perfume

Border and Perpetual carnations as well as Bizarre, Dwarf and Laced pinks and all their hybrids are much in evidence this month. Most of them are clove-scented and in some e.g. the Malmaison carnations, the scent is almost overpowering. In the middle ages this clove scent was much more prized than it is today. Wine was scented using these flowers since Roman times. In Britain this practice was still common in Chaucer’s day, hence their alternative name of ‘Sops-in-the-wine’, although they called pinks, gillyflowers. It seems likely they were commonly grown in tavern gardens and also used to flavour beer. It is believed that a clove-scented beer was served at the Tabbard Inn to pilgrims before they set off to Canterbury.

The musk scented wild flowers noted last month continue into August, but with the addition of a number of new, similarly scented garden plants. Oddly, many of these come from an area of the Himalayas i.e. Western China, Tibet and Assam, which also happens to be the range of the musk deer, which may well eat the plants concerned. Musk is a formidable animal scent and has been called the strongest and most durable of all odours. The Empress Josephine was so fond of it she always had a bowl containing musk placed in her dressing room. It is said the room still smelt strongly of musk fifty years after her death. Sea asters have a heavy musk and honey scent which is strong enough to draw in pollinators some distance across a saltmarsh.

Mints are another treasure-house of different scents this month. Whenever both wild and cultivated mints are encountered it is well worth bruising a leaf this month as their scents are so pleasant and varied. Although Corn mint Mentha arvensis has been in flower for some time, most others mint flowers are just starting to be noticed. As a group, they are all rich in volatile oils with elements of peppermint, spearmint, thyme, camphor, menthol as well as fruits such as apple, orange, lemon and pineapple. Others have more spicy scents such as ginger or the complex set of fragrances that makes up the perfume of the eau de cologne mint. On top of this great variety, the odour of mint itself has the strange effect of eliciting both a warm and cold sensation at the same time. It is also both refreshing and slightly numbing. There are a small number of wild mints in London but a much larger collection of garden forms and hybrids. Even Culpepper noted there were as many mints as there were “sparks in Vulcan’s furnace”.

The two most likely to be found wild are Corn mint and Water mint M. aquatica. The former tends to frequent the sides of fields and the latter is found in water. Two others that are occasionally found outside gardens are Peppermint M x piperita and Horse mint M x longifolia. Both Round-leaved mint M. sauveolens and Spearmint M. spicata are rarely found in the wild, even though the latter is the one usually used to make mint sauce. They all have pleasant smells except for Corn mint which is more of a mixture of ginger and gorgonzola.

The smell of peppermint is universally known for its mouth refreshing qualities with its hint of menthol. In the eighteenth century it was sufficiently popular to be grown as a crop at Mitcham. Horse mint, which can also be called White, Woolly or Woodland mint, also smells of peppermint. It was used to scent baths – one of which Seneca, the Roman polymath, is said to have died in. In gardens, it is worth seeking out Apple M x gracilis, Pineapple M. sauvealens ‘Variegata’ and Eau-de-cologne mints as well as Japanese mint M. arvensis var piperascens. The latter variety was so popular in Georgian London it was dried, powdered and inhaled like snuff.

Pennyroyal M. pulegium is a wild mint that has unfortunately been picked out of existence by Londoners, possibly as it was used to rid houses of fleas. It gained the word ‘royal’ as it was used for this purpose in Tudor palaces. Gerard tells us it was sold at Mile End to departing sailors, not just to rid them of fleas but also to sweeten their drinking water for their forthcoming voyage. It seems likely it was common at Mile End, which was then a wet heath. Places to find a range of mints include Chelsea Physic garden, Hampton Court palace gardens, Kew gardens and Capel Manor as well as many garden centres.

Hops Humulus lupulus are also seen a good deal this month, not only climbing in hedgerows and decorating garden arbours but also hanging overhead in many London pubs. It is found wild all over the city, but all these plants are likely to be relics of earlier cultivation. The young shoots are now fashionable to eat as a poor man’s asparagus. Although hops are famous for flavouring beers they were also used to make pillows. These were first warmed a little before being given to anxious patients such as George the third. The scent emitted from the hot, dried leaves was believed to encourage sleep and reduce any cares or worries.

Another common plant noticed a lot, mainly because of its height, is Codlins and Cream Epilobium hirsutum. Its English name refers to its unusual scent of warm apples, which is released not from its flowers but from its bruised leaves. This odour led to other names such as Apple pie and even Sod apple. ‘Sod’ in this case means inedible as when the leaves were eaten they occasionally led to convulsions.

Two other rarer wild plants that were far more prized in the past are Ploughman’s spikenard Inula conyzae and Elecampagne I. helenium. In the case of Ploughman’s spikenard it is the dried root that produces the celebrated spicy scent and not the flowers. The original spikenard was believed to have been used by Mary Magdalene to anoint the feet of Jesus and it was also used by Romans to pamper their feet. It was so prized that Horace even offered Virgil four cases of wine for a small box of spinenard ointment. The Ploughman’s epithet comes from the fact it was burned to scent rooms by less affluent people such as ploughmen. The ‘sprinkling water’ which dandies and courtiers in later centuries were fond of sprinkling over themselves also contained it. Today the plant has an unusual distribution, being mainly confined to partially shaded chalk banks in south east London.

Its close relation Elecampagne is similar in also having a scented root. In this case it smells of bananas when first dug up and then turns to violets as it dries. It is yet another ingredient of absinthe but was also candied and baked into cakes. These cakes were still being sold in apothecaries as an aid to digestion in Georgian London. In the past it may well have been far more common, especially along the river, but is now only seen in gardens where it gives a little late summer colour in herb gardens and herbaceous borders.