Sweet William (Dianthus barbatus) from Marks & Spencer...
For many years I have seen the buckets of bunches of Sweet Williams (Dianthus barbatus) at the Marks & Spencer checkouts and thought maybe one day I would buy some – although I usually prefer big yellow chrysanthemums or roses.
Last week I bought some. I had hoped for the heady nostalgic spicy smell I recalled from childhood, when my “Auntie” Margaret grew them in her garden and gave me fresh little bunches. Her lovely second husband was called William (Bill) Baldwin and she sometimes called him Sweet William.
But back to the M&S bouquet. What a disappointment! Nothing! Hardly a whiff of perfume. Is it because they are stale? Or have the plant breeders knocked the odour out of them?
Sweet Williams come in several shades of pink and white...
They are of course related to pinks and carnations, which probably also don’t smell the way they used to. Neither do tomatoes – unless you buy them “on the vine”. And a friend of mine at work pointed out something I didn’t know – Cox’s orange pippin apples don’t rattle any more…
White with a hint of pink...
I wonder about the all-white bouquet of Princess Catherine earlier this year, which I think contained Sweet William as a token of her new husband Prince William, but I wonder if her flowers were strongly perfumed – they should have been, as there were also lilies of the valley in there.
White Sweet Williams...
We may ask who was the William the flower was named after? Wikipedia has many theories but the fact it was already called “Sweete Williams” by the English botanist John Gerard in 1596 rules out some of them.
Named after William Shakespeare? Unlikely – it was probably one of those lovely etymological corruptions – from the French oillet (pronounced something like “wallay” or “”willey”), meaning “little eye”…
In old French the Sweet William was called "oillet" meaning "little eye"...
The Squirrelbasket 
Hi Pat,
I suspect the reason for the lack of scent is that the flowers have been refrigerated in transit.
And with the tomatoes on the vine, most of the smell is from the vine, not the toms. Back when I used to grow my own, and eat them freshly picked, this was the case – most of the tomato scent is concentrated in the stem and leaves.
Yes Ron, I think you are right on both counts!
I so remember the warm, green smell of the greenhouse full of tomatoes when I was a child. And I was allowed to pick the ripe pea-sized and cherry-sized ones straight off the vine and pop them in my mouth.
Have a good Saturday…
x
I asked a florist once about the appalling lack of scent in flowers and was told that many commercial growers prefer low-scent varieties because they sell better – don’t trigger allergies in the buying population. Apparently the majority of flowers buyers lay down the cash to please only the eye. A terrible thing according to my nose.
That’s an interesting thought!
What is the world coming to?
A bit like the way supermarkets depend on perfectly-shaped and uniform fruit and vegetables these days.
Best wishes and thanks for commenting…
I just love your writings and the fact you are willing to share..
The scent of “SW” ahh as a child loved to take a flower head and rub on my arm..and have the scent all day. Just like everything in the fruit/ve/flower dept..the world has taken and made everything so un-natural..fruits/veggies picked before ripe and then gas forced to ripen..flowers hybrid to the point of no fragarance..it’s all about the bottom line..$$$..
I planted tomatoes in a pot just so my grandchildren could taste a ” real” tomato ripened on the vine..Now you see why I love and relate to the weeds so much..everyone has spent big $ to kill them and rid the world..BUT…ahhhh..we still exist unchanged by man and growing stronger each day…weedbychoice..kjforce
Just enter something like ‘buy scented sweet william’ into your search engine and you’ll find plenty of suppliers of seeds that should produce well-scented plants.
Thanks for the suggestion, although actually I was just hoping to be able to buy some scented ones as cut flowers! Seeking instant gratification in the M&S queue, I’m afraid!
By the way, I still wouldn’t mind some more feedback from you on my blackcaps! Still confused!
🙂