Posted:
5/2/2025 |
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Missouri Botanical Garden announces latest Museum exhibition - Smelling the Bouquet: Plants and Scents in the Garden
Stephen and Peter Sachs Museum highlights the diversity of scents in plants
WHAT: Educational exhibition on plants and scents
WHEN: Friday, May 2, 2025-March 31, 2026
WHERE: Stephen and Peter Sachs Museum at the Missouri Botanical Garden
4344 Shaw Blvd, St. Louis, MO 63110
COST: Free with admission to the Garden
INFO: mobot.org/museum
(ST. LOUIS) A rose by any other name may still smell as sweet, but without roses and other plants, we might not have the perfumes and popular sweet-smelling products we use today.
A new interdisciplinary exhibition at the Stephen and Peter Sachs Museum at the Missouri Botanical Garden explores the botanical, cultural, and olfactive history of the spectrum of scents created by plants – from floral to stinky.
“Remarkably, despite being integral to our daily lives, scents are overlooked in importance in many ways. Plants contribute so many smells that are so familiar to us, from the flowers and trees we enjoy, the foods and beverages we eat and drink, as well as the perfumes and incense we may use,” Sachs Museum Curator Nezka Pfeifer said. “The world of museums and scientific research has been focused on scent in recent years with opportunities to learn more about which pollinators are attracted by which plants’ smells, but also how artists and olfactory experts interpret the meaningful presence of smells in human culture. This exhibition is unique in that it focuses exclusively on the intersections between plants and the scents they create through the unique smells of plants in the Garden’s collections, including some endangered and not usually found in perfumery. These fragrances inspire us every day and they have important stories to tell us through their scents."
Smelling the Bouquet: Plants and Scents in the Garden will examine how those scents considered desirable to humans are used to create perfume, incense, and other smells and flavorings. The exhibition will include interactive scent stations featuring the scents of plants in live Garden collections, contemporary scientific research, and olfactory art.
This exhibition is now open and will be open through March 31, 2026. The Sachs Museum is open 11:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m. daily and is included with regular Garden admission.
Engaging visitor opportunities, including a performance series and “sniff 'n learn” programs are planned throughout the exhibition's run to provide unique opportunities for visitors to connect with the exhibition. All the art and scent commissions, performance series, and sniff ‘n learns are sponsored by Nancy Ridenour.
About the Exhibition
Smelling the Bouquet will explore many aspects of plants and scents, including diverse uses like perfume, incense, and other scent-based cultural practice. The exhibition will also explore active Garden research projects. The exhibition will include sniffing stations featuring dozens of plant scents and compounds, cultural scent objects, and Garden Herbarium specimens. Visitors can also engage with the fragrant plants depicted in the Museum’s iconic botanical ceiling mural with a unique activity guide developed by olfactory experts.
Scent highlights include Madagascar vanilla and its various compounds, as well as orchid bee and plant research by PhD students studying plant and insect chemical relationships at UC Davis. Garden scientists Dr. Mónica Carlsen and the William L. Brown Center team in Madagascar have completed headspace/scent trapping of plants both in St. Louis and Madagascar, with analyses completed by the Bioanalytical Chemistry Facility at the Danforth Plant Science Center to learn more about the fragrant volatiles these plants produce.
St. Louis-area perfumers Shawn Maher and Weston Adam have created several interpretive fragrances of special and fragrant plants in the Garden’s conservatories and gardens ranging from the rare and endangered to the famously stinky. A special olfactory artwork commission in the exhibition is by olfactory artist Dr. Gayil Nalls who has created a 2025 edition of her World Sensorium. This olfactory artwork is a perfect dovetail of the primordial relationship humans have with plants and their scents. Around the world, each country holds different iconic aromatic plants to have special meanings in their cultures. They are used daily for medicine, rituals, and cultural practices. Through a global survey, these plants were identified and their essential oils were formulated into a one-world scent based on each country’s population percentage. They form the foundation of World Sensorium.
Performance Series
Complementing the exhibition, the Sachs Museum Performance Series series will present dancers, singers, and poets who have created special programs that intersect with scents commissioned from the exhibition’s perfumers. Each set of two performances takes place at 11 a.m and 1 p.m. on Saturdays, when the Garden offers free admission till noon to St. Louis City and County citizens with proof of residency. All performances take place at the Sachs Museum and are about 30-45 minutes in duration. The lineup for the performance series is:
Sniff n' Learns
To explore additional content related to the plants and scents exhibition, a series of three Sniff ‘n Learn programs will offer open educational engagement by different experts on select Saturdays through Summer 2025 at the Sachs Museum, daily hours 11:30am – 4:30pm. Free with Garden admission.
June 21, 2025: Fragrance in the Victorian Age with the Mourning Society of St. Louis
June 28, 2025: Perfumers Spotlight with Shawn Maher and Weston Adam
August 9, 2025: Scents of Wine and Spices with Michael Leonardelli, Shawn Maher, and Weston Adam
Film screening and discussion
In addition to the series, a short documentary and discussion will take place at 6 p.m. on Thursday, August 21 in Farr Auditorium in the Garden’s Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center. This will take place during the Garden’s extended Thursday evening hours and will be included with regular admission.
The screening of the 35-minute Ireland and Its Aromatic Heritage documentary film will be followed by a panel discussion on aromatic heritage and sustainable futures with Gayil Nalls, an olfactory artist in Smelling the Bouquet, and Garden scientists. This event is sponsored by Bonnie Koblitz.
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The Missouri Botanical Garden’s mission is “to discover and share knowledge about plants and their environment in order to preserve and enrich life.” Today, 166 years after opening, the Missouri Botanical Garden is a National Historic Landmark and a center for science, conservation, education and horticultural display.