The Prairie des Femmes Smell

I had never lived in the country before my wedding day when I moved permanently out to the Praire des Femmes. We picked a spot about ten acres back in an overgrown field to build our house because it was nearest to the only cypress tree in the tree line. The prairie was like the jungle to me, city girl from Ville Platte. The prairie-field was rank with wild flowers, low plants like soft white rabbit tobacco, and tall plants like little blue stem and goldenrod. There were aromatic little plants, like sassafras, bay laurel, honeysuckle vines and something we called "Russian Fennel" that I loved to pick on our walks. There were fragrant bushes like the medicinal manglier and wax myrtle that I use for dark green winter bouquets and to render balsam-scented wax from their berries. There are many wild edible plants out here from dandelion, and thistle, to dewberry, blackberry and mulberry.  I have planted a few different mint patches around, herb gardens, and also a couple perfumed bushes like the sweet olive, gardenia, and banana magnolia. But of all of the beautiful and scented plants we discovered or have planted on the prairie, none of them seemed to be emitting "the smell."

There was a smell in the prairie. It was like flowers but better, and I caught it in still pockets in the late afternoons. Today I am getting whiffs of it through the open doors in the house, which is rare. It's an herbal smell and very sweet and green, almost warm. It hits you right at the back of your nose and crosses your eyes its so good. It appears in spring and fall, at the change of the season. I spent a few years trying to track down its origin. We'd be walking in the back drive at dusk when the air gets still and I would freeze, having gotten enveloped in a pocket of the most beautiful smelling air.  Do you smell it!?! I would exclaim to anyone around, usually my husband.  I would call him over, barely daring to move, lest I disturb the pocket and dissipate "the smell"! He would sometimes get a faint whiff of it, to my full delight, but no one was ever obsessed like I was. Since its discovery, I have been like a dog after this elusive prairie smell.

I checked the little lavender bush, no, I followed the sweet smell of the banana magnolia, too, but it was distinctly its own, same with the sweet olive, or osmanthus. I spent afternoons and evenings going to check the back drive for the smell, and noticed that it got caught up in the bamboo where the air was stillest, but it wasn't the bamboo. I had theories that it was the smell of the fresh cut grass (it seemed to come out strongly after we ran the tractor) or the smell of just all of the new green growth mixed up after a spring rain. I noticed that it was often around where my husband had sewn yellow clover by the handfuls, but the clover itself didn't smell, just green. It seemed that the smell would come intoxicate me, rendering me useless to find its origin and then I began smelling it in the house, too. 

I had never smelled a smell that was better than the Prairie smell, but there were similar ones. Once, in the spring, we were walking in the woods in the French Alps, and I smelled "the smell" coming off of the mountain just like it did at prairie. Additionally, we went to the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles because my husband's band was nominated for a Cajun Music Grammy. I was about a month pregnant with my first child and my senses were magnified. I kept smelling "the smell" in the Staples center, of all places, while it was filled to capacity. So I thought I must be crazy then. I asked the people around me, and they said it must be everyone's perfume; but I knew it wasn't because it was a natural smell, and perfume made me nauseated at that point. I thought I must be imagining it until the Hawaiian nominees who were sitting near us passed my seat and I got a strong whiff of their Maile Leis, a green leaf lei that was worn by Hawaiian royalty (or Grammy nominees).

These experiences helped me get closer to figuring out the priaire smell, I knew it came from a green plant, at least. One day, I was cleaning out an old box of garden seeds,  and supplies when THE SMELL hit me. I remembered that it always hit me when I messed with that particular box, and now, it clicked. I tore the box apart sniffing it all, and finally came across a small cardboard box with a bag of yellow clover seeds in it. It was the smell. The yellow sweet clover! My newest theory is that it is the collective smell of the yellow clover as its small flowers open, or a breath that the patches themselves exhale in the late afternoons. I have since filled little sachets of the seeds to scent my drawers, much like the Hawaiians do with their Maile leaves. Still, I wouldn't go sewing a bunch of yellow clover in your yard. They develop a burr after they flower that hardens in the summer and makes walking barefoot across the  prairie quite the compromise.
 

From Whence Cometh this Elufive Prairie Smelle?