Garden for the Senses by Kendra Wilson

Author:Kendra Wilson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241575499
Publisher: Dorling Kindersley Ltd

g SCENT g CONTENTS

The science of scent

Cut grass is a well-loved smell, but why? Some people say it is the scent of summer, with countryside overtones. It can bring back childhood memories, of a household’s grown-ups mowing the lawn – the fragrance of comforting order and routine. Others might prefer the drier, sweeter notes of hay. When something “smells”, it is the result of the olfactory sensory neurons, high up in the nose, being stimulated by tiny odour molecules which – in the case of cut grass – are carbon-based compounds called green leaf volatiles. Plants frequently send them out in response to damage, and with mowing, the volatiles are more concentrated, delivering a stronger signal to the olfactory bulb in the brain.

From here, olfactory signals move straight to the limbic system, where the amygdala at the base of the brain, and the hippocampus behind it, process emotional response as well as the making and storing of memories. Up until adolescence, smell (along with touch) is a person’s most developed sense, having already begun to form in the womb. The scents you experience at a young age, therefore, are closely linked with your early experience. Not all smell memories are equal; sometimes a certain aroma triggers a particularly powerful response… and there it is, a Proustian moment.

We have different levels of sensitivity to scent, with unequal chemical and emotional responses. Our sense of smell also diminishes with age. It is possible to improve olfactory responses, however, by exercising the smell sense like a muscle, through consciously sniffing and identifying the varying components of what you are smelling. The plain fact that the not-unpleasant fragrance of freshly cut grass is really the smell of plant trauma is, unfortunately for the grass, irrelevant.

For people, a freshly mown path or lawn smells of the joys of summer; for grass, it’s another matter.

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