Specialty Gardening: A list of fragrant plants, 0 by bluespiral

bluespiral wrote:
Thanks, ansofan - very comprehensive list. I love reading about the places where species came from originally from which the cultivars we're more familiar with came - not to mention that moment of first contact between a plant explorer and a plant new to his/her part of the world.

So, having the Latin name that is unique to each plant helps a lot in the hunt. To me, this list is not so much weird as a gate to wonder.

For example, it's one thing to revel in the fragrance of Japanese or Chinese wisteria dripping from an arbor in a tame western garden. But then something is added to the garden experience when you know something of that plant's origins.

19th century plant explorers talk of traveling down Asian rivers over which steep cliffs loomed that fountained with wisterias and daphnes, among other plants. The plant explorer, Reginald Farrer is said to have fallen, along with the donkey he was riding on, into a rather torrential stream, and the two were carried separately quite a distance in that water before being rescued. If I find the source of this memory, will post it later, because Farrer's style of writing is unique in the way it conveys the intensity and drama of his experience.

To get a sense of an original habitat of Asian species of wisteria, am attaching a Japanese woodcut in this post and one more in the following post. (I can't find the source of this woodcut, so am including another source of this woodcut that doesn't convey Hiroshige's sense of falling snow and mist)

Hiroshige_SnowGorgeoftheFujiRvr_1832
from: http://www.hiroshige.org.uk/hiroshige/dyptychs/dyptychs.htm