Plant Names – Books

On my birthday I received Perfumed Botany by Jean-Claude Ellena and a book on Plant Words by Kew. I am looking forward to reading them. I also bought the book by Dominique Roques In Search of Perfumes, and the book Nose Dive by Harold McGee.

I particularly like to look up words and Latin names – it is good to know for example, the Latin name for the garden privet, Ligustrum ovalifolium, was the inspiration for one of the names of the powerful, green scented raw material 2,4-dimethylcyclohex-3-ene-1-carbaldehyde (CAS no: 68039-49-6). The Summer of 2024 was particularly good for smelling the privet flower, too, which has a green and watery floral scent. It grows when the hedges have been left or uncut long enough for the flowers to grow.