In a culture that tends to emphasize the visual sense, the process of plant identification gives us the chance to engage all our senses.
Plants change shape over the course of their development, but the pictures in field guides show only the mature plant in flower. The smell, taste, and texture of a plant will change less over time than the shape. The mints, with their often strong odors, are easier to identify by smell than by sight.
Unfortunately, our vocabulary of smell is quite limited, so it’s hard to describe a plant by its smell. “Aromatic” is pretty neutral, just meaning that the plant has a strong odor, although the connotation is something positive. “Pungent” is the word often applied to the smell of the mints, but it doesn’t even come close to the fresh, tingly odor of peppermint and does nothing to distinguish the husky ground ivy scent from the tangy odor of bee balm. And while the scents of sage, wild thyme, and wild marjoram will all evoke an image of spaghetti sauce, their smells are quite different.
The only thing to do is smell every plant. Often you have to crush the leaf to release the scent, sometimes even break it up with your fingernails. I love the moment of discovery, when an innocuous-looking plant floods the nose with a completely unexpected odor.
Although hard to describe, smells are not that difficult to remember. They go deep into the animal part of the brain, and the next time you encounter that particular scent, your memory will be stirred, along with the sharp pleasure of stimulating that underused sense of smell.
