Eleven Ways of Smelling a Tree (2020)

emergencemagazine.org

55 points·royalroad··9 comments

Some interesting discussion of tree smells came up in The Straight Dope way back in 1985, to the dismay of the columnist [1].

https://www.straightdope.com/21341746/i-want-to-get-my-nippl...

At the very top of the article is the 'listen to this Story'. Do give it a try - it the podcast episode recording.

Their podcast is one of the highlights of my week as they go into a very wide variety of subjects, everyone of them special in their own way.

I had to cut down a dying ash tree ten years ago, another victim of the Emerald Ash Borer. I'd forgotten the wonderful smell of the wood as beautifully described here.

Ash is one of my favorite woods to work because of the smell! And the straight grain, and the pores, which are much smaller than e.g. white oak, and the color.

It's interesting to read the description of the smell of green ash. I mostly get white ash, and I think of the smell as being similar to really dark chocolate or red wine.

It'll be a tragedy when all the ash is gone.

Edited to add: your username checks out (for others: quercus is the genus of the oaks).

I assume you aren't splitting it - the fibers make that a real chore.

I have to say, one of my favourite smells is the smell of cottonwood right at the end of spring. It's how you know summer's coming. Well that and the swainson's thrushes start singing.

Take a walk through Hyde Park or Green Park round about now and you’ll smell intense, sweet aromas signifying spring turning into summer: sweet chestnuts, lime trees and hawthorns.

Cedar

eucalyptus during hot summers in the Bay Area/East Bay

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