A BC LIST OF PERFUMES, ESSENTIAL 
MILs, ETC... AND PLANTS WHICH 
AFFORD THEM 
‘¢ The breath of flowers is far sweeter upon the air where it comes 
and goes like the warbling of music than in the hand; therefore 
nothing is more fit for that delight than to know something of the 
flowers that do best perfume the air.”—Lord Bacon. 
Accorpinc to Dr Piesse, the plants grown most ex- 
tensively for perfume are Jasmine, Acacia, Roses, 
Bergamot, Orange, Violet, and the Tuberose, 
This list does not profess to be complete, since nearly 
every plant that grows has odour or fragrance of some 
sort or other, however slight it may be. Even species 
and varieties of the same species vary very much in 
odour, as is abundantly proved by species of, say, 
Dendrobium, Reseda, or Diosma, and by varieties of 
H.P. or Tea-scented Roses, Apples, Pears, or Sweet 
Oranges, no two varieties smelling or tasting precisely 
alike. This is even true sometimes of individual fruits 
off the same tree. All that is here attempted is to give 
a bird’s-eye view of the plants most generally grown for 
fragrance, and especially of those having sweet-scented 
leaves as well as flowers. 
The growth or evolution of the perfumer’s art began 
in Egypt and Greece, having probably come thence from 
the East. From Greece it naturally came to Rome, and 
thence to France long before it reached our own shores. 
The master perfumers of Paris received a charter 
from Philip Augustus of France in 1190, but the trade 
scarcely began in England until the time of Elizabeth ; 
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