Sarracenia flower scent

[kby]

OK, this may be a well-known one, but I couldn't find it; if you know a reference would be appreciated.

Do Sarracenia flowers lose their scent when pollinated (before petal drop)?-kby

[Brian Barnes]

Hi kby! Mine still retain a slight scent, but not as strong as before pollination or petal wilt. S. flava seems to be the strongest smelling, hands down! The scent, of course dissipates completely as the seed capsule or flower-head dries completely.
Happy Growing,
Brian.

[kby]

Apr 1, 2008 20:07:41 GMT Brian Barnes said:

Hi kby! Mine still retain a slight scent, but not as strong as before pollination or petal wilt. S. flava seems to be the strongest smelling, hands down! The scent, of course dissipates completely as the seed capsule or flower-head dries completely.
Happy Growing,
Brian.

Thanks; that might be a sufficient explanation for me. I have bad enough allergies and spent enough years in a chem lab (doing bad smelling projects since I already had a poor enough sense) that I probably just can't smell what's left even of S. flava.
When the flower opened I could smell it but it wasn't as strong to me as I was led to believe it would be from reading. I could get nothing out of S. alata or S. rosea and nothing else has come through yet, so S. flava was what I was primarily basing this on.-kby

[Alexis]

All the flowers smell to some degree, but obviously flava is the whiffy one!

[Brian Barnes]

Yes indeed! And quite an attractant for male cats also... ;D
Bri.

[Randy Zerr]

The smell associated with a bog of thousands or S. flava in bloom is nauseating to me. But a beautiful sight! Some folks say they detect no odor in some species. I detect a slight sweetish smell in leucophylla, minor, rubra gulfensis, and psittacina in that order strongest to weakest, and a "weedy" or slightly musky springlike odor in alata and purpurea venosa burkeii.
Flava just plain stinks but Nepenthes khasiana flowers peg the funk factor meter

[Thepyro]

My first Flava flower just opend up, so i decided to smell it and I swear it smells like fruit punch. I also had my sister smell it... "That smells like moldy garbage." It's odd how people can perceive a scent so differently.

[wmgorum]

I've got a mortar mixing tub that's got multiple pots of S. flava in it, all of them blooming. They're definitely strongly scented since I don't even have to be close to smell them, but I wouldn't call it offensive either.

I bagged the flowers and have been pollinating them with a paintbrush to get S. flava seeds and I really haven't noticed a decrease in the strength of the odor of the flowers.