In addition to displaying a myriad of flowers, the Missouri Botanical Gardens is also a world class research center. This fact is currently on display in the Sachs Museum, with the exhibit Smelling the Bouquet. The highlight of this exhibition is the opportunity to sniff over two dozen scents that include several interpretive fragrances of the garden’s live plants as well as botanical compounds renowned for use in perfumery. Small bell jars are laid out throughout the museum and visitors are invited to pick them up and smell. Most of the scents are pleasant, but a few like the aptly named corpse flower don’t just smell, they stink.

Scent is an essential part of life. It is especially important to plants, as they use the chemistry of scent to communicate with the world around them, attracting pollinators with their intoxicating smells and repelling herbivores with pungent odors. These different scents attract and repel humans as well, evidenced by the archaeological remains of plants and tools used for incense and perfume in ancient cultures. Every part of a plant—from flower to root—contains volatile organic compounds (VOC) that can be harvested and extracted through different processes, with the art and science of perfumery combining these elements in new and exciting compositions for one’s nose to enjoy.

Smelling the Bouquet explores the spectrum of scents plants create, inspired by the diverse live and scientific collections at the garden. The gardens outdoors offer renowned fragrant plants that have been a part of human culture for millennia, such as roses, jasmine, and water lilies. The garden’s conservatories protect and display unique and rare plants from around the globe that provide new opportunities for botanists and horticulturists to study and analyze their scents to understand pollinator interactions and what VOCs they may create and emit. Garden botanists carry out this scent research on plants in Madagascar, which is today also the center of production for one of the most famous and identifiable scents in the world, Madagascar vanilla. The garden’s Herbarium specimens, together with scent-related objects, intersect the artistry and the botany behind the human culture of scent.