How much is our judgement of smells affected by sight?
In his fascinating book "What The Nose Knows", smell scientist and sensory psychologist Avery Gilbert counts several interesting experiments that explored the relationships between visual appearances' effect on how scents were perceived.

It turns out that we are far more prejudiced about the odours that go through our nostrils than we may think. For example: when smelling a colourless liquid versus coloured liquid, test subjects perceived the coloured one as stronger than when they smelled the same one bind-folded. Reverse perception was reported when the subject were not allowed to sniff the smell of a beverage, but rather sip it through a straw out of a cup with a clear lid (FYI: our sense of smell plays an active role in what we call "tasting" as it is a huge contributor to flavour - the scent of food is experienced differently once it's inside our mouth and rises to our nasal cavity and olfactory bulbs).

I wonder if this has any implications on, say, genetically modified food? Would we perceive a genetically-engineered apple-flavoured banana as more banana-like just because of it's appearance, or will the apple flavour come through properly? Yet another reason to not bother with genetic engineering in food... Likewise, when a bottle of essential oils is mislabeled - it can really catch even the most avid nose off-guard. A few weeks ago, a bottle of "fresh ginger oil" arrived, full of no other than rose geranium oil. Occasionally, I will still re-visit the bottle and try to convince myself of its gingery qualities... to no avail.

If you have a story to share, or how you were convinced that something had a different smell than it did just because of a misleading "packaging" - do share. Among the commenters there will be a draw for a decant of Yerbamate. Nice way to conclude last weeks' Fougere course :-)

P.s. Avery Gilbert also has an excellent blog on pretty much everything related to smell-science, First Nerve.

As I was strolling leisurely down Bute street towards Sunset Beach last night, I noticed that one of the lilac bushes was beginning to bloom. The buds haven't opened yet, but I could not suppress my curiousity and had to sniff them out and see if their scent has began to develop.
Before I could even figure what came first - the flower or the fragrance, I heard a woman yelling from a balcony in that building. I assured my daughter that surely this woman must be yelling at some dog that's ruining her patio garden; but she made it very clear that she was mad at me for "picking the flowers". I doubt that this bush even technically belongs to her, being one of the many trees and plants along the sidewalk (Vancouver does amazing job with gardening everywhere); but nevertheless I told her I was only smelling them. Which seemed to make her even more upset. Apparently, she's not willing to even share the scent of that lilac (if it will ever have any).

So - our Monkey Monday discussion topic today is this: have you ever been led by your nose into trouble?

And among those of you who comment, there will be a draw for Lys Méditerranée decant.

I'm back from 3 weeks in Israel, where there were all kinds of bees... There were ones that humbly collected pollen and nectar of cistus (see photo above) and were busy building combs and making honey; but also there were some perverted ones that strayed from their task for a pseudocopulation with deceiving plants...

Growing up in Clil, there were a couple of spots near our home were year after year we'll go looking for the "Large Bee Orchid" (Devoranit Gedola). They were rare, and like most bulbeous plants, re-bloom each year in the same location and don't spread out nearly as easily as other wild flowers.



This year, I was fortunate to spot the rare bee orchid (Ophrys apifera) quite late into spring and in an area I've never knew was a habitat for this strange plant. The area where they were growing had a mind boggling abundance of them (relatively speaking, of course...) and me and my brother Yotam spotted 2 hybrids of them - Large Bee Orchid (which looks like bumblebee) and Velvet Bee Orchid (the brown one, which looks like a wild bee).




These sneaky orchids, in addition to dressing up as a wild Mediterranean bees, have developed an anatomy that will embarrass the manufacturers of blow-up-dolls. Furthermore, it even releases virgin bee pheromones (!) to make the male bee mad to the point of having sex with them...
This act of deception is called pseudocopulation. I haven't noticed any smell around these orchids, so I'm guessing it's one of those scentless pheromones... This natural phenomenon, nevertheless, got me thinking quite a bit about the intelligence of plants - they must know more than they show!

These orchids are the only plants I'm aware of having such a developed sexual scheme. I'm curious to hear if you've ever seen them in real life (preferably in the wild) or if you know of any other plants that have such strange sexual habits.

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