That smell: Berkeley edition

September 27, 2018 2:30 PM

What is the floral scent that perfumes Berkeley at night?

I visited Berkeley a couple of winters ago. I was only there at night, and taking a walk around the area the air was perfumed with a delicate sweet floral scent. It was amazing and I want to bottle it. I’m guessing it could be night-blooming jasmine, but I want to be sure. Any leads on what it have been?

posted by Champagne Supernova to Home & Garden (13 answers total)

Does it smell kind of like grape pez, or Mr. Bubble? If yes, night-blooming jasmine.
posted by ApathyGirl at 3:02 PM on September 27, 2018 [9 favorites]

Yes, Berkeley is rife with jasmine. It's the best.
posted by wemayfreeze at 3:03 PM on September 27, 2018 [3 favorites]

Almost certainly jasmine. Unless things have changed dramatically since Dr Bored for Science and I finished grad school in 2015 and moved to Massachusetts.
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 3:56 PM on September 27, 2018 [2 favorites]

There’s also lots of citrus floral scents in town, but mostly at night the jasmine swamps that.
posted by SaltySalticid at 4:01 PM on September 27, 2018 [2 favorites]

The two official city smells of Berkeley are Jasmine and weed.
posted by The Toad at 4:08 PM on September 27, 2018 [14 favorites]

In some places, especially in Jan / Feb, it's also the flowers in the camphor trees I believe. But yeah, mostly jasmine.
posted by slidell at 5:43 PM on September 27, 2018

It not jasmine - it's some kind of orange relative. It produces miniscule berry - sized fruits i believe.
posted by twoplussix at 6:20 PM on September 27, 2018

Found it! I think im wrong about it being a form of orange, but this is everywhere in the Bay area and is all over Berkeley: Pittosporum undulatum
posted by twoplussix at 6:26 PM on September 27, 2018

You can see the difference between the two in this blog post.. I think victorian box blooms for about 2 months starting in March here. the flowers are pretty inconspicuous - you just notice you're under one because of the overpowering perfume.
posted by twoplussix at 6:32 PM on September 27, 2018

The Brugmansia (often called Datura, but the horticultural ones are generally Brugmansia) might be blooming now; I remember them being pretty dizzying in Berkeley the night Obama was elected. Brugmansia and weed, of course.

Brugmansia triva: quite toxic; extinct in the wild despite being fairly easy to propagate; and the scent of the flowers is widely believed to be a euphoriant.
posted by clew at 6:59 PM on September 27, 2018

Best answer: Downtown Shattuck Ave has huge Pittosporum_undulatum trees lining the streets, the city has them all over - smells lovely, like orange blossoms. Apartments and office building have star jasmine shrubs (sticky sweet). In domestic gardens it's either Pink Jasmine vine (perfect sweet), Night Blooming jasmine (only at night, sweet and heady, carries for blocks). Brugmansia is sweet, tropical and lemony, with flowers like huge bells, usually draped over tall fences.

On warm nights all the scents gets stronger.

If you are very lucky, it's Osmanthus--very distinctly like apricots + heaven. There was a huge Osmanthus tree near College and Alcatraz, and small one on upper Shattuck and Francisco. No idea if they are both still there.
posted by tula at 9:08 PM on September 27, 2018 [15 favorites]

I... May have to go investigate these two locations . Do you know what time of year the apricots + heaven smell is smelling here?
posted by twoplussix at 9:35 PM on September 27, 2018

Ha, late fall and early spring, so now is the time.
posted by tula at 12:16 AM on September 28, 2018