June- A Wonderful Month to Learn Some Common Scents

*Note the spelling: S-C-E-N-T-S.  Anyone who knows me knows I am not exactly qualified to write on the other kind of common sense! 

In recent blogs, I mentioned I would be nomadic for the month of May and June and I have been.  The delight in that, is the chance to travel and tarry in many diverse regions, each one going through their own signature style of spring.

When I left the Hill country of Texas, just one step ahead of it’s being practically washed downstream, it was in the midst of one of the grandest spring flower displays in years.  I am straining the brain to think if I associated any “scent” with those many flowers.  Not really.  The scent of spring in Texas is that of burning brush.  A wet spring is the perfect time to safely burn up the piles of ash junipers that have been trimmed in winter. Once again my New England senses are thrown a curve ball.  In my mind, the smell of wood smoke conjures up images of snow-covered cottages with smoke curling out of chimneys.

In Illinois, so many of the deciduous trees were in flower that I could have walked down the street with my eyes closed and told you what tree I was passing.  The streets were often lined with Basswoods, a tree in the Linden family, and, although their flower is hardly noticeable, the scent they give off is intoxicating.   If you are lucky enough to live in the same region where they grow, then by all means, get out there and sniff while the sniffing is good. 

 

 And, if you happen to live in Berlin where the famous “Unter den Linden” (“Under the Linden trees”) are, you are really under the gun to get out there and inhale their perfume.  Sadly, those lindens are succumbing to the stress of warmer summers, colder winters and the compacted earth, caused by so many people strolling by, that they are thinking of removing them (!) and replacing them with trees that can better handle the climate.  Somehow, “Unter den Osage Orange” just doesn’t have the same ring. 

 The neighborhoods and parks where I walked the dogs daily often had several Sycamore trees. These trees are easily identified by their flaking bark but also by their spicy/ sweet smell in spring.  It seems to me that I remember it smelling like cat spray in the winter. Might be a faulty memory.  I did read somewhere that they had large “stinky” buds in winter.  I thought it was a typo but it also listed sticky, so large sticky and stinky buds are perhaps what I am remembering.

The bark that looks multi-colored is really white bark that peels off in large patches and it is those patches that are various colors of gray, brown or black.  It turns out the bark is more rigid than other trees so instead of just expanding with the trees growth, it literally bursts at the seams!

Lilacs are the signature scent of May in New England but in Illinois they grow a Japanese lilac with huge white, puffy flowers, that also are great to be downwind of.

My next stop was Rhode Island where my friend lives just blocks from the bike path that runs parallel to the bay.  This area provides the same olfactory delights that exist on the Cape in June.  Huge bushes of multiflora rose announce their presence before you round the bend and see them; the smell of the marsh, all salty and rich; the smell of pine needles warmed by the sun and, I think I smelled but did not see, the Swamp Azalea which floats its scent out for quite a distance.  Rosa ragosa (beach rose), common on the Cape, is common here too and invites you to bury your nose in its wide crimson flower.  All these scents tell me I am home and that the month is June. 

Wherever you live, they’re most likely is a signature early summer scent that you look forward to, making this the season to inhale life deeply.  Feel free to share what they are.  My hope is that before the season is over, we will all have expanded our common “scents”.