FOREST FRAGRANCE
"The most important function of a forest is something that we will never see. It is called fragrance. Trees and forests from the tropics to the Boreal, all produce some sort of smell. The older the forest, the stronger the smell. The most ancient word that I can find for this kind of smell is úd going back to very old Gaelic, meaning the fragrance of the forest.
"...A working mature forest, anywhere, produces the maximum diversity of úd, or forest fragrance. These smells are complex, mostly aromatic in chemistry and arise from the soil mycorrhiza of the forest floor, and on the periderm of the powdery material found on the bark of many of the tree species. Smell arises from the forest floor perennial or annual plant species either above ground or from things living in the ground like the mushroom dynasty. They also come from the hidden, endophytic, small fungi within the plumbing of the tree’s anatomy. Smells emanate from the scent glands of leaves, flowers and fruit and from the complex medicine of the tree itself, the phenolic marvel we call resin."
—Diana Beresford-Kroeger, Irish botanist, medical biochemist and author
Read the article here: http://dianasjourney.com/…/…/21/from-diana-forest-fragrance/
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