Welwitschia in Perfumery?

Gymnosperms are quite a fascinating topic to study during botany. It has quite a wonderful assortment of pine, firs, cedars, Cycas, junipers, etc- which are all really vital as the components of a fragrance. The part that intrigued me was Cycas. Who knew that Cycas micronesica would turn out to be a paradise of fruity scents? Usually, when we'd smell fruity notes, it'd have an artificial quality to it but here, it has a more velvety, smooth, lactonic, creamy scent profile bringing out realism in the scent. It's like an oil painting brimming within shades of myriads of fruits like pineapple, mango, peach and banana. Once, these scents superimpose into a symphony, it gives the effect of "tutti-frutti". Moreover, we have various other gymnosperms used in perfumery for its resinous, balsamic quality like Pinus, Cedrus, Hemlock spruce and even in essential oils of Juniperus. 

Moreover, reading about it made my head spiral into an olfactory concept. It made me ponder about a fascinating species which I had encountered in my chapter regarding gymnosperms. It was the Welwitschia species. Welwitschia mirabilis is one of the longest living organisms on the planet, believed to be persisting since the Cretaceous period. Sprouting out of the sandy ground in a xerophytic habitat such as Namibia and Angola, this was used for firewood and museum specimen collection due to which it has been listed as an endangered species. It has cones for reproduction and has a pair of permanent leaves growing along with a well-developed tap root system. It is known to 'drink fog' and is longer than the blue whale. 

Although, it's an untapped niche topic about the scent produced in it. Some evidence does show that it plays a role in chemical communication paired with heat signals to attract pollinators. It makes me think about how we spray a rich, velvety perfume for a date, somehow mirroring the desire of a plant to attract pollinators as mistresses. The plant is dioecious which would mean that the female and male plants are different.

In pollination biology, the cones secrete a sweet, maple-like tasting nectar and also the plant releases certain volatile organic compounds which could be tracked down by using headspace technology. We could record the faint odor using dynamic headspace sampling (DHS). Although, a desert is a rigid and strenuous environment to conduct it using a portable GCMS, an inert polymer bag- a Tedlar Bag chamber, an adsorbent like Tenax TA. Also, considering the high humidity due to Atlantic fog, we would require certain moisture-trap linings to ensure there aren't prominent water peaks in the GCMS. Moreover, we would need to sample several number of plants for it because there are risks of it being infected by fungi like Aspergillus niger, especially on its cones. 

It could be possible to obtain the headspace during the months of January to March during which it produces such VOCs from the male cones during the flowering season attracting insects by its nectar. The possible timings of running the headspace could be ranging from 7 am to 11 am during which it produces the scent before the scorching afternoon heat comes. The male cones are salmon red in color. There have been certain pollination researches and tracking down of olfaction in it and chemical signaling. Also thanks to the entourage effect, there would be traces of Atlantic fog, effects of insects and fungal spores, the sandy desert air and heat all together developing a unique footprint encapsulated within a bottle of fragrance. The desert air could provide a voluminous ozonic quality to it and something myrrh-like to the scent.

Moreover, a fragrance house could collaborate with the Red List Project to conduct this in an eco-friendly, harmless manner. It could help establish a cultural identity relating to Africa and Namibia. The permissions and agreements could be made through the Nagoya Protocol as well as coordinating with the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism (MEFT) at Namibia for the same. It could be a memoir or an ode to its long age surviving the times since the dinosaurs were here before us!

The fragrance concept would be husky, sweet, yeast-like, dynamic but with undertones of fog and aridity. It could envelop a juxtaposition of temperature contrasts and raw materials to recreate an accord using the GCMS chromatogram. The unwanted parts if there's any effect due to black smuts and fungi, it could be corrected in the chromatogram.

In addition to the complex scent profile, the perfume flacon itself could be draped with embroidery in zardozi goldwork at the rim with a regal texture along with Aawambo basket weaving in which the bottle could be packaged, as a tribute to the sedulous, creative indigenous tribes of the area. 

Learning the life sciences makes me think about how imagination is the true propellant. It's about the click of a moment which whispers a sand dune of coastline salazamis- a possibility of something unconventional. Although, there would be constraints of desert-like conditions, fungal infections, precise equipment to ensure no harm on the plant, protecting the biodiversity and the planet, it's an amusing topic to understand more about...