Re: A. konjac's blooming

The Smithsonian Institution has an osteoprep lab.  Dead animals are brought in and placed in a room full of Dermestid beetles.  The building has air filters to remove some of the odor.  When the filters break down, Turkey buzzards can be seen circling overhead.  I do search the skies when my Amorphs are flowering.
I went in there a couple of times and the smells actually penetrates clothing.  It stays in your clothing until they get washed.  Odors are air born particles.


Mike Bordelon

Botany Greenhouse
Smithsonian Institution
4210 Silver Hill Rd.
Suitland, MD 20746
301-238-3130

>>> ptyerman@ozemail.com.au 05/10/02 11:11AM >>>
>flowering parts.  Almost four hours later, I still catch myself
>thinking that I smell it.  It must do something to your mind to
>cause olfactory hallucinations!  Anyway, it was a most pleasant

David,

I've often wondered about this myself.  It seems that unpleasant smells
generated by rotting material (dead bodies, rotting vegetation etc) and
pongy flowers (as opposed to unpleasant cleaning chemicals etc) hang around
in your nose for a lot longer than pleasant smells that appear to be as
"strong".  I have often wondered if the nature of "dead thing" smell is
actually generated by particles, and therefore when you smell them some of
these particles lodge in your nasal passages and continue to give you the
effect for a long time, whereas other smells do not contain as large a
particle and therefore do not linger in your nasal passages for as long?'

Does anyone know if this IS the case?  Or is it just that we remember
unpleasant smells better than the pleasant ones <grin>.

It was interesting to see someone else note something I've observed and
wondered about myself.  Nice to have confirmation that it wasn't just my
imagination (or if it was then you have the same type of imagination as
well).

Cheers.

Paul Tyerman
Canberra, Australia.  USDA equivalent - Zone 8/9
p*@ozemail.com.au 

Growing.... Galanthus, Erythroniums, Fritillarias, Cyclamen, Crocus,
Cyrtanthus, Liliums, Hellebores, Aroids, Irises plus just about anything
else that doesn't move!!!!!
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