I would have thought by now that the full Blade Runner effect would be in place on the planet. There is so much I want to taste and touch and smell, yes… smell! that I don’t have access to in cyberspace yet. Take for example these mock orange. I bet you can’t smell them through the screen. Nope.
Lovely image but you can’t smell them. And it is their fragrance that punctuates their beauty and aligns it with your understanding of the plant. The smell.
They’re called mock orange because the flower is similar to that of the orange and lemon flower and the aroma of mock orange is similar to that of lemon blossoms although more so of jasmine. I grew up with jasmine hedges that separated our brick home from the next brick home. There were hedgehogs and wetas living in the jasmine hedge, it didn’t stop us from playing in and around it. Jasmine is the smell of my childhood home and the mock orange that grows in Woodhaven is an elixir and a reminder of where I come from.
At the core of our essence is the bold reality that we are animals. Our sense of smell is a leader: “follow your nose,” “that doesn’t smell right to me,” “something smells fishy,” “the sweet smell of success.” It shapes and colours our opinion but like touch and taste we can only access it when we’re in its presence. Take the dry hillside for example: bunchgrass, sand, clay, the sweet, sweet aroma of jackpine in full pollination, nothing compares. Unless you’re mock orange of course.
Come. Come to Woodhaven in the next few weeks while the mock orange is in bloom. This is the most full and luxurious I’ve seen this growth in the years I’ve been here. Walking anywhere in the park is good, but there is a cathedral of mock orange from about midpoint on the flume trail all the way to the parking lot on the north side of the park. Silly to miss it. It’s a public art project brought to you by Nature Inc. And it’s free. It’s time to commit to a visit here. 🙂
The Woodhaven Nature Conservancy is at 4711 Raymer Road, Kelowna, BC.
I am so lucky to have a copy of Joan Burbridges’, Wild Flowers of the Southern Interior. If it weren’t in my home I’d have a difficult time identifying many of the plants that are found here. I know quite a few, but her book seems to fill in the blanks well. What you’re seeing here is White Campion. Joan’s notes indicate that it will grow up to 120cm high and the flower grows in loose, open clusters at ends of oppositely branched stems. She goes on to describe in detail the make up of the flower itself, “Up to 2.5cm across with 5 deeply notched petals which narrow abruptly and form 2.5cm long tube at right-angles to blades.” She then describes the top of the tube and details the difference between the female and the male plant…. our Joan.
