Chimonanthus praecox: A Redolence of China

David Yih

n a raw, wintery day last February, I monanthus praecox has been cultivated for traveled from Connecticut to visit the over a thousand years. A great number of cul- OArnold Arboretum, impelled by curios- tivated varieties exist in China, where it is ity. In 1977, my father, at the behest of the poet grown as a garden shrub, a potted plant, and Donald Hall, had written a series of vignettes for flower arrangements. When the Sung for The Ohio Review recalling the China he had dynasty poet Huang T’ing-chien composed a left more than thirty years earlier. Among these poem in praise of la mei, the plant attained was a nostalgic essay in which he sought to instant fame and popularity in the capital, convey a feeling for Chinese esthetics as exem- Kaifeng. Fan Chengda included it in his botani- plified by Chimonanthus praecox, known in cal treatise, Fancun meipu (Fan-Village plum China as la mei. Its English common name, register), circa 1186. According to the custom wintersweet, encapsulates two notable fea- of associating a plant with each month of tures of the plant: its membership in that small the lunar calendar, la mei is the flower of the fraternity of temperate shrubs that bloom in twelfth month; its blooming thus coincides winter and the remarkable fragrance of its flow- with the Chinese New Year. ers. I had recently learned that a specimen grew The Arnold Arboretum’s lone specimen at the Arboretum and wanted to experience this (accession 236-98) was grown from seeds fragrance for myself. received from a botanical garden in Belgium. No account of wintersweet fails to mention Wintersweet is marginally cold hardy in USDA the scent of its blossoms. But, as my father’s Zone 6 (average annual minimum temperature essay points out, the resources of the English 0 to -10°F [-17.8 to -23.3°C]), so the plant was language are scarcely adequate to describe the carefully sited in a protected microclimate on smell of flowers. His attempt begins by con- the south side of Bussey Hill. In colder win- trasting wintersweet with gardenia, orange, ters flower buds may be damaged or killed, but and locust, whose scents “have something sen- in good years the hardy visitor who ventures sual in them that makes you feel restless, as if into the Explorers Garden in January will come there were something missing in your life.” The upon the pendant, waxy yellow blossoms pic- wintersweet’s fragrance is something “entirely turesquely scattered along leafless branches and different, because it is ethereal, spiritual, oth- find the air charged with the heady scent for erworldly.” This distinctive scent had set off a which the plant is known. Proustian tumult of memories when my father The chemical components of wintersweet’s happened to visit a botanical garden while liv- fragrance are under intensive study in Asia, ing in Geneva, in 1964: where as many as 161 compounds have been “As I wandered about I suddenly smelled a identified in the scent. Little wonder, then, that remembered fragrance … In the tepid sun and opinions vary as to how best to describe it. Last the breeze, I suddenly recalled my grandfather’s winter, the Arboretum’s Chimonanthus strug- house with its two wintersweet trees, my middle gled to bloom in freezing temperatures, but my school in Soochow with its ancient garden, and companions and I did find many plump, globose the hills of the Chia-ling River. My mind was flower buds and a few open flowers to sniff. drunk with memories of people who had gone Among our varied reactions: spicy, minty; like out of my life and of sceneries I should in all hyacinth or mock-orange; like a steaming cup likelihood never see again.” of jasmine tea—welcome sensations on a chilly Chimonanthus belongs to Calycanthaceae, day in the dead of winter. a small family whose members are found primarily in East Asia and North America. David Yih is a writer, musician, and member of the Endemic to montane forests in China, Chi- Connecticut Botanical Society.