MYSTERY OF MUSK

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 58, 9 March 1928, Page 3

MYSTERY OF MUSK

ITS LOSS OF SCENT WORLD-WIDE PHENOMENON PUZZLE FOR BOTANISTS "I would willingly answer your question if I could: but I cannot, and I do not think that there is anyone who can," said Dr. A. W. Hill, the Director of the Royal Botanical Garden, Kew, when asked just before his departure from the Dominion if he could account for the fact that throughout the world in general musk, that one-time treasure of evefy English cottage garden, has lost its scent. .. ' ■■ ■ - Everybody twenty years ago, who knew anything at all about flowers; knew musk and its scent. In every garden the green leaves and the pretty yellow flowers made a pleasant enough picture to look upon; but the plant was treasured, not for its beauty or for the fact that it flourished indoors as well as out, but for its sweet 'scent. This scent was not quite like other scents: it would quickly pervade a room and the leaf, for that was the origin of the scent, would go on smelling for almost any length of time, whether still growing or whether plucked from the parent plant. /"Very generous of their - scent ,were musk leaves; in fact, dried leaves of musk were kept by one man of science for "over twenty years, being carefully weighed at the beginning and at the end of the period. The musk had been giving out its perfume all the time, but-not the slightest loss of weight could be'detected.:' Inseparable' seemed musk and . its scent, and books on botany learnedly lay down the law that leaf scents are permanent.- But a surprising thing happened. The musk plant about a dozen, or fifteen years ago ceased to smell with its old sweetness; in fact, it ceased to smell at all. At the beginning of the War'it'was becoming harder and' harder to acquire a plant of musk with anything of the old -fragrance. Not that the War was the cause of this loss: it was mere coincidence, just as it was mere coincidence that the plant began to become scentless about the time when the manufacture of synthetic musk as a scent began to be practised. Barer and rarer became the scented. 'musk. As a common cottage garden plant it began to disappear, it being natural to suppose that the reason of its disappearance lay in the loss of scent; the yellow flower was pretty enough, but without the scent people no longer cared to keep .the plant, far it was the scent of the leaf that endeared it to the gardener. Barer arid rarer became the fragrant musk plant,, not only in England, but also in other parts of the world, and at the present .time the sweet smelling musk is but a memory. There are those who claim to still have some in their gardens; but if they have, they possess a rarity. which could be turned to monetary advantage. POSSIBLE CAUSES. In the loss by musk of its scent lies a deep botanical mystery, the solution of which is known to none. It is a mystery not quite like any other .in plant life, and. has given rise to much speculation. A hint of the cause of the mystery may be found, says Sir William Beach Thomas, an eminent botanist, in the method of propagation. The old people used to increase their musk • plants by dividing them in the spring, and it is much more certain that a plant will keep its character and virtuos when so multiplied than if new plants are grown from seed. But this cannot be tho sole cause of the-disappearance of the scented musk;' another factor, the desire of expert plant growers to improve upon Nature, may very" possibly,: even probably, enter into the mystery.1. Horticultural skill each year produces hundreds of new flowers of brighter colours'and neater shapes than the old ones; but tho acquisition of new attractions too. often means the loss of old ones. For example there is no finer shaped white rose than that called Frau ■ Karl Druschki, but its perfection in shape has been acquired at the expense of ita fragrance; it is practically scentless, and what is a rose without scent! Now, somewhere about the time when musk bogan to be less fragrant a new variety of the plant began to be'talked about. There was the common musk, sometimes called the monkey flower, tho other being Harrison's musk,■ a plant with rather a larger leaf and flower than the old variety. Perhaps people Logan to pay more attention to the size of tho leaf and the colour of the flower. They grew more plants from seed and loss from division, and while the flowers improved tho scent decreased. But the suddenness and completeness of the loss of scent remain;surprising mysteries, for the plant has been known and cultivated almost. universally and yet everyone has had the ~ same experience. A FOREIGN COMPETITOB. There is one curious point which maythrow some light on the mystery of the musk. No plant has increased quite so rapidly: in England' during the last score of years as the "mimnlus," which is also a "monkey flower." Originally introduced from America, it has spread far and wide, and is admired everywhere for its fine flowers, but it is a musk without a scent. : There are now many garden varieties of it in which the original yellow flower has turned to all sorts of shades of. brown and terra cotta, and even redi, It may be that the -popularity of these fine-flowered musks and their crossings with the old musk were one cause, at any rate, of the loss of scent i nthe old musk. Expert growers are now making a real effort, not before it is too late it is to be hoped, to recover tKe old scented plant of our memories—■ tho Mimulus Maschatus, or the mimilus with the musk perfume.