foxy fritillaria michailovskyi
Someone told me yesterday that they say that fritillaria michailovskyi smells foxy. I got what he meant. He wanted to make sure. You know, like sex.
First of all, major props to a working man for recognizing the flower, knowing its pain in the arse name, and for retaining this erotic bit of esoterica (or esoteric bit of erotica I suppose, depending on which team you happen to be batting for).
Secondly. As a euphemism for sexy, foxy is first rate. Sure, gents have been calling good-lookin’ ladies foxy for ages immemorial, but to have it connote not a look but a smell is to put a novel twist on the word that resonates with darker meaning when it’s used in relation to fox behavior. Think feral, think sweaty, think animal.
But. I clipped a few and stuck my nose deep up in them and… meh. They have a smell, but it’s not a musk or a funk. It smells like rot. I mean, I’m all for dirty girls, but pretty or not, this is beyond the pale. Turns out it’s a single compound to blame for the stank, a certain 3-methyl-2-butene-1-thiol, which they say has a smoke-roast stink but I sez no way unless your smoke-roast has been sitting in the sun way too long.
by the by, everything worthwhile to learn about fritillarias can be learned here.
foxy, foxy fritillaria, foxy odor, fritillaria michailovskyi, fritillaria odor, napoleon, sexy
Anna Kolesnikova
as to both great flower-lover and presently interested in euphemisms the article under consideration was an extremely fascinating one, and what I should like to inquire is whether you have some newsletter which I could sign up for or would you be so kind to e-mail me directly on the point of what you know about flowers and illustrate it with pictures…………….
anyway, discoweing your page was such a pleasure to me, that I certainly would contact you occasionally if you don’t mind……………………
steve
Thank you Anna for your supersweet comment,
But alas, I am as regular in posting as rain is in falling on parched earth, so a newsletter seems like it would be to you like a weatherman’s promise to an impoverished farmer.
Howzabout you hit the “subscribe” button up in the top right corner of the Internetwebpage and see what happens. I’m 23.8 percent sure it’ll work…