Memory & Spring

Over the past week as I descend the stairs outside to my study or to hang out the washing a distinct aroma greets me. It is the stuff of dreams – a smell that reminds me of my father and spring in Perth. In particular old men with buckets in Hay St Mall, selling it in delicate bunches come September. As the month of my birth, boronia heralds spring in my imagination. Its pungent smell a mix of sharpness and earthiness. Quite distinct – I know no other smell like it. My father loved it and sent me to buy it when the men were selling from their buckets in the city. I knew it grew in the cold wet south, so they must have made the journey with this sole purpose in mind. I am nostalgic remembering this. And now it is growing at the bottom of the stairs under the lemon tree in Riddells Creek. Planted last year and kept alive all summer long, it is flowering abundantly and offering up its unique fragrance. Its botanical name is Boronia megastigma, indigenous to the south-west corner of WA, I associate it with Denmark on the south coast as I know it grows there and is where I lived as a little girl. It has delicate fronds of narrow leaves and its flowers are small pendulous balls - brown with lime-yellow centres, bursting out abundantly along the branches. But its perfume makes it distinctive and unique. If we had a perfumery legacy in Australia this would be the queen of perfumes surely! I am smitten and enthralled to be able to linger, filling my nostrils with its heady fragrance and igniting memory.