Ask Mr. Smarty Plants is a free service provided by the staff and volunteers at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
Can't find the answer in our existing FAQs, submit a question to Mr. Smarty Plants.
Need help with plant identification, visit the plant identification page.
From: Temple, TX
Region: Southwest
Topic: Wildflowers
Title: Texas wildflowers that have fragrance from Temple TX
Answered by: Barbara Medford
The short answer to that question is no. If there is such a list, we couldn't locate it. We found a number of websites on fragrant flowers, but they seemed to run heavily to shrubs and/or non-natives to North America or Texas. Actually, all flowering plants put out a fragrance, sometimes pleasant to human noses, sometimes not. When we were researching your question, we ran across websites where oil of bluebonnet and bluebonnet-fragrance soaps and lotions were sold. We were once given a bar of bluebonnet fragrance soap, and didn't care for the smell, though we love bluebonnets. Fragrance is in the nose of the smeller. Many plants will have no fragrance discernible by human noses at all, and others no fragrance you want to smell. For instance, Symplocarpus foetidus (skunk cabbage), native to North America but not to Texas, gives off an odor of rotten meat, especially when the leaves are bruised. This is to attract flies, the skunk cabbage's pollinator.
This website, from The Floral Expert Flowers and Fragrances, lists several reasons why flowers smell, sometimes as advertising to pollinators. The fragrance might be something attractive to a bee or butterfly because it smells (to them) like one of their own kind of the opposite sex. They land on the flower looking for love and get pollen on them to distribute to other flowers, also beckoning them. For some flowers, their fragrance is to attract pollinators to a source of nectar. There is speculation that some plants will exude an odor unpalatable to herbivores who might want to have that particular flower for dinner. It is known that deer do not care for aromatic plants, although when deer are really hungry they just hold their noses and eat anyway.
Since we can't find a list for you, we will list a few Texas native wildflowers that we know from personal experience have pleasant fragrances, at least to us. Notice several are members of the mint family. On mints, the fragrance comes from the bruising of the leaves, so this isn't really a flower fragrance.
Palafoxia rosea (rosy palafox) -Asteraceae (aster) family
Monarda punctata (spotted beebalm) - Lamiaceae (mint) family
Phlox divaricata (wild blue phlox) - Polemoniaceae (phlox) family
Viola missouriensis (Missouri violet) - Violaceae family
Salvia coccinea (blood sage) - Lamiaceae (mint) family
Salvia farinacea (mealycup sage) - Lamiaceae (mint) family
Winter wildflower blooming in East Texas in the winter
October 06, 2009 - Is there a wildflower that will grow/bloom in east texas during the winter that can be tilled into garden in springtime. We put rye and red clover but were interested in getting some color/variety to ...
view the full question and answer
Wildflowers and grasses in Vermont
June 01, 2009 - Invasive in VT.? I am ready to try seed balls in my SW Vermont meadow. (All the tilling and clearing of grass - or as sometimes advised - using Round Up??? for a wildflower garden? seems like so muc...
view the full question and answer
Seeds for native Sandyland Bluebonnet
October 04, 2008 - I live in Bastrop County Texas and would like to plant our native Sandyland Bluebonnet, Lupinus subcarnosus. I have checked most of the native plant supply firms, but can't find this species (except...
view the full question and answer
Wildflowers for a pond in MO
September 10, 2011 - I have a spring fed pond in Missouri and would like to plant perennial wildflowers in the area around it. Are there any that would do better or others that are not recommended?
Thank you.
view the full question and answer
Establishing a wildflower meadow in Madison GA
January 21, 2010 - Can a wildflower meadow be established by seeding in a sunny pasture without removing all existing vegetation, just mowing low and slightly loosening soil with the teeth on a front end loader?
view the full question and answer
![]() |
Support the Wildflower Center by Donating Online or Becoming a Member today. Mr. Smarty Plants wants you to be his Facebook friend. Click the Facebook icon to add yourself to Mr. Smarty Plants list of friends. |