Strange topic - but does anyone else love the smell of peat?

[kwende]

When I was - oh - about six or seven my father brought me to a carnivorous plant exhibit at a botanical gardens in St. Louis (I'm from Nebraska but have relatives who live there). I had read about carnivorous plants but had never actually seen any. My imagination was really kicking when we pulled up to the building in which they were housed. As I turned the corner into the exhibit, apart from being greeted with some of the most magical looking life on the planet, I distinctly remember that biting, almost sour smell of peat and sphagnum. Maybe it was part emotional and part just having smelled it distinctly for the first time (and therefore correlating that smell to that excitement), but I've always really enjoyed the smell of peat.

Later in life this translated into an equal love for real peatty scotch.

But I digress. At any rate, whenever I enter the west portion of my house (where my plants are kept), and I start to smell that acidic, peaty smell again, I get all excited and just have to walk the extra ten feet to check out the plants for the day. I'll stand there for fifteen minutes with my glasses pulled down to my nose, examining the movement and growth of each plant (how it's curled around a bug, or how a new pitcher is evolving). But that smell, it always gets me. Whether I'm looking at someone else's collection or my own, I sometimes feel the need to nose over the top of a couple plants and just get the full experience.

We're all a bit "strange" given that we even have this interest in the first place, but I'm wondering if I'm the strange among the strange for having such a full sensory-based love of these plants. I feel the leaves of my pitcher plants, I listen as the soil pops a bit while water seeps in, and so forth. About the only thing I haven't done is tasted the plants

Call me weird, but I really love this hobby. Such wonderful little plants.

 

[mcmcnair]

I've tasted Sarracenia and Nepenthes nectar and the dew from Sundews. I inspect my plants every morning after I shower and everytime I come home from school and just before I go to bed. For me its not so much the smell of peat but the smell of good soil that gets me excited about plants. As much as I hate the stuff Miracle Gro soils tend to smell incredible. Oh and I also talk to my plants a fair amount of the time. For instance, the other day my N. x dyeriana decided to unfurl a leaf on top of my Pinguicula hanging baskets completely starving them of all light and I just was like "Why would you do that there's tons of room in every other direction and you choose to unfurl behind the nests twined between wires so I have to redo these nests. Thanks a lot dyeriana..." then I realized I was talking to my plants. true story. Needless to say you're not alone

 

[mylesG]

for me it is fresh cut grass or some nice rich topsoil....both such great smells. mm mmm

 

[Nepenthesis]

I like the smell of dry sphagnum.

That's earthy smell, but it is more pungent and smells more living than just dirt.

 

[That One Guy]

I just really love the smell of gasoline...

 

[kwende]

Mcmcnair, what does the nectar taste like?

 

[mcmcnair]

sweet but its got a weird texture to it once it dissolves, its kind of slick feeling. Hard to explain... try it sometime

 

[Peatmoss]

I do smell good!

 

[lance]

^ Hence your name

I've always found the smell of peat to smell good. It's hard to say what it reminds me of that smells good, but I haven't potted up any plants in a while. Nepenthes nectar has the best taste and is one of the seasons I've always wanted a Lowii to nom on its exudate. The problem with that is they grow sooo slow! Orchid nectar tastes almost too sugary and is pretty discusting. N. X Dr. Bodie does make a good treat though .

There was another time where I was forced to drink unopened pitcher fluid because of a horrible stomach ache I had (supposudly it has qualities to aid stomach aches... ironic right?!). It helped out a lot and was probably the freshest tasting "fluid" I'd ever had. The smell reminded me of when splitting a plant stem open and smelling the inner green bark.

 

[richjam1986]

I've had a similar experience with the smell of sphagnum and peat. I've found it intoxicating ever since I bought some of my first CP's from Home Depot and got a good whiff with my face close to the pots while glaring over the plants. I agree that it's not so much the smell itself, but the memories of the excitement I had over the plants when I first smelled it. It's part of the whole experience. As an asside, if you ever manage to get to the redwood forest in CA on a moist day, it has the same smell

The slick nature of Nepenthes nectar is obviously addaptive, as part of the role of the peristome nectar is to make the peristome slippery when wet, aiding in insect capture. There are a whole series of scientific articles on the subject (I was going to do a study with one of my professors studying the molecular composition and comparison of nepenthes nectars, yet in the end my college didn't fund it ... But I digress). Nepenthes nectars on different species can taste quite different, and even peristome nectar vs lid nectar or leaf nectar, but the addaptivity of these differences has yet to be studied (also part of what I wanted to study)...

 

[corners]

I was just thinking this the other day. LSM smells nice when its fresh and not rotten.

 

[corners]

I like the smell of dry sphagnum.

That's earthy smell, but it is more pungent and smells more living than just dirt.

Ive always been paranoid about getting my face to close to a dry bag of sphagnum. Was nervous id inhale the spores

 

[Lil Stinkpot]

I've had a similar experience with the smell of sphagnum and peat. I've found it intoxicating ever since I bought some of my first CP's from Home Depot and got a good whiff with my face close to the pots while glaring over the plants. I agree that it's not so much the smell itself, but the memories of the excitement I had over the plants when I first smelled it. It's part of the whole experience. As an asside, if you ever manage to get to the redwood forest in CA on a moist day, it has the same smell
~snip~

All of the above.

I was just about to bring up the redwood forests. I had my head in my lowland terrarium, inspecting the Nepenthes seeds, and I noticed that exact same smell. It smelled just like the woods after a nice, fresh rain. Mmmm, mmmm! Now I want to go for a drive through Big Basin.


At some point I'm going to have the terrarium set up as a planted terra., with a false bottom collecting the extra water. Oh, boy, that should smell as nice as it will look.

 

[MatthewM]

I think sphagnum smells great. Almost has a hint of tea tree or eucalyptus to it. The pre mixed nepenthes substrate that peter d'amato sells smells like potpurri to me

 

[BioZest]

When I open the cover of my tank the smell hits me like a brick, and its a bit unpleasant, but then its kind of a nice earthy, lingering smell...I like it!

 

[roxorboxor]

My recent repot material was moss and small orchid bark, and it smells sooo good when wet! I think it's more the bark than the moss tho.

 

[Wire Man]

As an asside, if you ever manage to get to the redwood forest in CA on a moist day, it has the same smell

Petrichor!

I was thinking the same thing as I was spraying down my Zen terrarium. I love the Earthiness of peat and live Sphagnum, such a refreshing, nostalgic smell.

 

[richjam1986]

Petrichor!

I was thinking the same thing as I was spraying down my Zen terrarium. I love the Earthiness of peat and live Sphagnum, such a refreshing, nostalgic smell.

Petrichor?
...

Edit: Just looked it up, Got it
"Petrichor (pron.: /ˈpɛtrɨkər/ or /ˈpɛtrɨkɔər/) is the scent of rain on dry earth"- wikipedia

 

[richjam1986]

Not always the best smell when you have cyanobacteria and mold growing in the water reservior though...

AHEM...Yeah, I need to get around to cleaning my lowland terrarium, lol. The plants do well though

 

[Wire Man]

There's nothing pleasant about cyanobacteria...