FOSSILS ET AL
Accretions of Secretions (Perfume Porn)
This next lesson is one of a series we call instrucción especial, to be followed by random interactive olfactive play.
“So labdanum resin releases a balsamic ambergris-like effusion reminiscent of our scalp sweat? while ambergris in turn makes an evocative show of elements that scentfully reference hominid hair? and also mimic the aromatic emanations from loins of dark-haired females? So writes perfume theorist Jellinek,” Saffron is baffled by this science.
Perfumes of vegetative and reproductive plant tissues, serving as chemical agents of deeply rooted signaling techniques, are also employed across the spectrum of animal lines and kinds. Such organic messaging, which results from coevolutionary processes, prominently and prevalently involves insects, which learn to harvest and transform or replicate the bioactive principles of botanical vapors. For instance, volatile terpene alcohols and esters, so ubiquitous as components of floral advertisements, are also emitted by faithfully pollinating bees.
“Whereas we human primates are in the business of applying commercial perfumes and functional fragrances to mask our distinguishing odiferous conditions, we females simultaneously apply cosmetics to enhance our distinguishing visual characteristics,” she says while blotting her lipstick with a napkin.
“Look at me, at my red lips … but turn away, considering the goats in my armpits,” Tulíp says.
To disorient their prey, stingless bees give off citral molecules when plundering nests. To delimit territories, apid bees mark grass stems with mixtures of monoterpenes. To seduce potential mates, two-spotted spider mites administer citronellol. Ants patrol and defend tree legumes in order to set up hegemonic access to methyl salicylate, which they utilize. Termites, from their frontal glands, secrete limonene, which is also dispensed by various beetles and some worker ants from their poison glands —
“Granting that we human people are disinclined to acknowledge our proprietary bodily perfumes, we suspect in this a measure of denial or ambivalence concerning our primeval biological heritage, a reluctance to broadcast metabolic indicators of our ancient origins.”
…terpenoid compounds from conifer tree resins are sequestered and chemically altered by male bark beetles for turning loose to induce mass attack, those from fruits of citrus and hop plants are put into service by hornets to induce alarm among workers. Swallowtail larvae make use of caryophyllene oxide, green stink bugs exploit bisabolene oxide … the list goes on, you’ll underestimate its extent, guaranteed.
“Aromatic metabolites of myrrh resemble the acidy sebum, those of geranium the pubic hairs, and those of carrot seed the composite hairy body regions of blondes?”
Worker bees, to orient returning foragers, lift their abdomens and throw out a cocktail of citral and other terpenoids (collectively termed nasonov pheromone), so it figures that beekeepers are able to use lemongrass or other citral-rich essential oils to lure swarms or establish new hives.
“The distilled oil from dried roots of Himalayan costus plants sends out compounds that express rancid-fat notes reflecting scalps and underarms of brunette women, while the thurifying oleoresin from styrax trees is likened to their whole-body perspiration?”
Still, mimicry in Nature goes both ways, as exemplified by Ophrys orchids which issue, from their blossoms, certain alkane and alkene compounds that assume the enticing perfume of receptive female Adrena solitary bees. The male bee counterparts submit to the scheme and come calling to masturbate, errr, copulate, errr, pollinate (yay, success) the plants. Afterwards, in order to divert additional visitors (to minimize damage to the developing embryo), the flower shifts to purvey an olfactive impersonation of non-receptive female bees.
“In other words, the bees ecojaculate in the ecorogenous zones of the ecolluring orchids.”
It goes on (and on) again (and again), as many plants, when under attack, discharge defensive perfumes within seconds (say, think of the fragrance of freshly cut grass) that deter directly though indirectly too, by attracting local organisms like mites but namely insects that prey upon or parasitize the herbivorous assailants, who in turn may themselves send off molecular projectiles such as mass-invade pheromones that function as calls for help. And any of the various auxiliary aggressors may also dispatch infochemical notices to congregate, which are frequently mating invitations since the gatherings turn out to be opportune to seek breeding partners. And later successional waves of molecule eavesdroppers may yet again trigger plant hosts to put compounds in circulation for a new series of transmitting and perceiving, creating a chain of giving and taking … wait now, try to follow along —
“Olibanum, the resinous exudate from trees of the bursera family, effuses an aromatic accord that calls up the sensation of perfume principles that radiate from bodies of brunettes and redheads after exercise?”
…really, the chemical crosstalk is intriguing, all the swapping and deceiving, adopting and seizing … the reticular communication is even more than you’re conceiving, in that … plants communicate with other victimized plants, but not only that … herbivore-induced volatiles are also ascertained by plants not themselves under assault, and that … such plants may respond with vaporous issuances of their own, and that … such molecules are successively detected by animals to ignite additional rounds of aggregation for a full-on orgy of storming converging resisting spying consuming and pairing.
“Extracts from seeds of mallow-family ambrette shrubs boast an evaporating show of musk-like fatty flourishes comparable to the scents that lift off from scalps and hair of blondes and brunettes?”
The accretion of secretions, of metabolic signals following longtime evolutionary arms races, of negotiated ecological trade agreements, of animal-and-plant-community action plans, of backup strategies and chemical chess games … we can’t point up too much that the hand of biotic history is forever being extended.
“We read from the archives of Jellinek that the exacting research chemist and his staff associate emissions disseminating from marine algae with generalized aromas originating from urogenital regions of their female volunteers?”
Finally, we are left to take account of what resolves from this fluid intricacy of countless unceasing back-and-forth interactions, this fluxing biological elaborateness compounded over myriad millennia.
“Our memories of the steroid androstenol are called upon by sandalwood, of urine are called upon by blackcurrant buds, of armpits are called upon by spikenard rhizomes, of animal feces are called upon by indole-containing flowers of jasmine, tuberose, lilac, and orange blossom?”
Proliferating perfumes of soil wind and rain, forest field and seashore. The colorful and complicated fabric of fragrance familiar to you. The backdrop bouquet of Life.
Published in Fossils et al. Follow to learn more about Paleontology.
