Bringing the Scent Back to Flowers

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I have a beautiful rose garden which lacks any significant fragrance.  Horticulturalists who have cultivated thousands of varieties of roses in the last fifty years have concentrated on appearance rather than scent.

Commercial interests realize that colour, shape, size and longevity are what sells flowers.  Since fragrance is an invisible sensory impression, it is not something most people consider when they are admiring flowers.  In the process of developing colour and size, the molecules that give scent to flowers have decreased in concentration, while pigment molecules have increased.

Scientists have identified about a thousand compounds that provide odour to petals and leaves.  Any particular scent might involve anything from fifty to a hundred of these.  Small amounts of many different compounds blend together in a subtle way to individualize the particular scent associated with a given rose variety.

Now horticulturalists are trying to uncover fragrance causing genes and the enzymes encoded by those genes, to produce the volatile mix that gives a flower its fragrance.

This attempt to restore the appropriate volatile compounds to bring scent back to flowers has more benefits than just delighting our noses.  Flower scents attract pollinators, and help protect plants from pathogens and pests.

So next time you pick a rose, check it for scent, someday that missing fragrance might return.