European linden ©J. Lundholm
Soon after moving to Halifax in the early 2000s, I noticed a curious phenomenon: every year, around the beginning of August, a curious scent would envelop the neighbourhood around my university. To my nose, it was an exotic, heady, almost incense-like scent, not quite floral but sweet and honey-like; intriguing and not unpleasant. My friends, however, generally describe it as “like cat pee”. One person’s incense is another’s animal urine, I guess. After a late spring, early summer in Nova Scotia feels like the biota is playing catch-up, plants and animals all hurrying to grow and reproduce during the brief period of warm weather. All that has slowed down now. The onset of this city-wide scent signals the peak of summer, where nature takes a breath before the slow slide into fall.
After I had been in my teaching position for a few years, my first detection of the scent in the summer made me realize that summer was coming to an end. While my research season was just hitting its stride — student projects in full swing — it was time to start preparing my courses for September. In fact, as soon as that fragrance hit my nostrils, a jolt of adrenaline would flood my system. I was back into panic mode with not enough weeks left to prepare it all. How could the summer go by so quickly? Especially since the trees and shrubs don’t fully leaf out around here until the beginning of June!
Tree hydrangea. ©J. Lundholm.
But what was the origin of this alluring scent? I figured since it was a sweet swell (to my nose) that it must be coming from a flower. By this time of summer, the roses are usually done flowering and there’s a lull before the goldenrods and asters pick up the slack at the end of the summer (late August and September), but there is one small tree that I noticed flowering every time I detected that elusive scent. This turns out to be not a native plant but an exotic tree hydrangea, with large clusters of white flowers.
I went close to sniff the flowers and leaves (a few times over the years), but there was never any detectable scent that got stronger with proximity to the tree hydrangea, so I gave up and just lived with the mystery. The yearly onset of hazy peak summer incense days got to be a familiar cue for my teaching preparations. In fact, it’s taken about five years post-retirement from teaching for the smell to have finally lost its potency to my nervous system.
The mystery persisted until summer 2023 when I figured it out by pure chance. I was walking downtown in late August, probably looking down at tiny plants growing in the sidewalk cracks and I smacked my face into the low-hanging leafy branches of a street tree. And there it was: the scent was coming from the green leaves of linden trees, a European species commonly planted in Nova Scotia in yards and streetscapes.
European linden ©J. Lundholm
European linden is a very common street tree in Halifax. ©J. Lundholm
To anyone who lives close to one of these trees this was likely no mystery at all: many complain about the sticky residue that coats anything under a linden tree by late summer. Linden is better known for the light, refreshing scent of their flowers[1] but the flowers are long since finished by the time the scent fills the city. It’s the leaves that make the scent and they are noticeably sticky on their surfaces at this time of year. Wikipedia puts the blame on aphids, small herbivorous insects that feed on plant sap and produce a “honeydew” exudate.
This time of year reminds me that it’s a privilege to live somewhere long enough to notice the seasonal markers, like the heady smell of linden in late summer. For all those who will return to the classroom in September, I offer a heartfelt gambatte kudasai! — a common Japanese expression meaning something like “you’ve got this!” and “hang in there” at the same time.
[1] Also known as “lime”, not to be confused with the citrus lime. The flowers, under whatever names, find themselves in herbal teas and other prepared products where their unobtrusive floral fragrance can blossom forth.
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