Diversity of floral scent of tulips

Tulips have a variety of floral scents.
Although the charm of tulip is a variety of colours and shapes, there are a few fragrant cultivars.
When you smell the tulip scent well, you can feel various scents such as citrus-like, honey-like, green-like.
We selected 86 cultivars of tulip that have characteristics floral odor.
About 183 scent compounds ranging from terpenoids and benzenoids to fatty acid-derivatives were detected by GC-MS analysis.
The major scent compounds were five monoterpenoids (eucalyptol, linalool, d-limonene, trans-b-ocimene, and a-pinene), four sesquiterpenoids (caryophyllene, a-farnesene, geranyl acetone, and b-ionone), six benzenoids (acetophenone, benzaldehyde, benzyl alcohol, 3,5-dimethoxytoluene, methyl salicylate, and 2-phenylethanol), and five fatty acid derivatives (decanal, 2-hexenal, cis-3-hexenol, cis-3-hexenyl acetate, and octanal). Tulip cultivars were classified into nine groups according to the composition of major scent components and sensory assessment of a living flower: group 1, anise (7 cultivars, e.g. ‘Candy Prince’); group 2, citrus (21 cultivars, e.g. ‘Advance’); group 3, fruity (14 cultivars, e.g. ‘Sane’); group 4, green (16 cultivars, e.g. ‘Cum Laude’); group 5, herbal (16 cultivars, e.g. ‘Davenport’); group 6, herbal-honey (1 cultivar, ‘Nagoriyuki’); group 7, rosy (2 cultivars, e.g. ‘Monte Rosa’); group 8, spicy (7 cultivars, e.g. ‘Ben van Zanten’); and group 9, woody (2 cultivars, e.g. ‘Queen of night’). It is thought that the diversity of floral scent of tulips is cause.

XIII International Symposium on Flower Bulbs and Herbaceous Perennials

N. Oyama-Okubo, T. Tsuji

floral fragrance, cut flower cultivars, classification, GC-MS analysis, sensory assessment

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2019.1237.34