Fragrant Spring Flowers

Medicinal Birch flowers - another innocent looking flower that does not normally attract much attention as its scent is subtle. But once you have decided to lean over and inhale this beautiful, crisp-linen coloured flower with butter-yellow stamen, you will discover an unusual orchestration of linden blossom and sweet almond flowers combined. Sweet and crisp, reminiscent of an elegant European soap, but so much better than that.

Sweet almond blossoms - from Shkediya, the queen of Tu Bishvat. If you ever come close to one of these flowers, you'll enjoy its honey and almond perfume, that so many trendy soaps attempt to imitate.

Arbutus blossoms... I don't smell much in them (partial anosmia?) but those who do, experience an intense honey-like aroma. No wonder the bees like them!

Bay Laurel blossoms. Smelling clovey, spicy and sweet from an abundance of eugenol.

קידה שעירה Kida Seira (Calicotome villosa), aka Thorny Broom, is very sweet smelling and around late March to mid April the fragrance becomes so intensely sweet that it's almost too much... It's beautiful and although I tried numerous times to tincture this, the results were pathetic. Whomever is going to succeed harvesting and extracting the flowers into absolute would win a small fortune for a labour of love (the thorns that the plant is covered with to protect it from goats and other beasts are a little poisonous actually, resulting in very unpleasant lingering stings). This plant grows in abundance in areas that experienced fires, as the seeds sprout better after fires.

Sweet Valencia orange blossoms. Can there be any other scent more happier and that announces spring in a brighter note than this?!