Roman Kaiser is a fragrance & flavour chemist researcher (and apparently no mean botanist) for Givaudan-Roche, and this large glossy 259 page tome is a remarkable study of some 250 orchid scents, which, according to the liner notes represent some data from 2200 species studied to date at the time of writing.
The book is divided into three sections, the introduction to the world of orchids, interdisciplinary discussion of orchid scents and the chemistry of orchid scents. In the latter section analysis of the trapped fragrances as isolated via the headspace odours and identified by GC-MS. New substances are confirmed by NMR and IR techniques.
Throughout the book, in the second section, are breathtakingly beautiful photographs from the American tropics, the African tropics, the Indo-Australian tropics and sub-tropics, and Europe.
This book could easily be dismissed by many as a highly specialised book of passing interest unless you are an orchid hunter with a penuche for perfumery. It has however an illuminating and remarkable few pages (six actually) in section one, under the heading ‘Verbal description of scents’. Although this section has been presented in papers elsewhere by the author, its importance to the study of floral odour description is central in this writer’s opinion.
The
author divides floral scents into four types and identifies the character
chemicals responsible for the typical odour profile of each group. Some groups
are further divided into sub-types which describe the scents of specific flowers
in each category.
Although
the author has access equipment and facilities which more humble researchers
would envy, the book is a remarkable record of research and detective work (and
no doubt devotion) to this area of volatile plant fragrance research.
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© 2001 by Tony Burfield
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