I have never encountered this. I suppose I ought to be grateful. However, there was a period of about 6 weeks this spring/summer, when there was a definite cat pee odor in the foliage around here.
That’s no treat, either, lemme tell you. At the time, one of my cats was going through a big ‘pee outside the litterbox’ phase, so my house smelled like cat pee. Then I would go outside and smell it, too. I really thought I was having olafactory hallucinations until a few other people commented on the cat pee trees.
Well, now I don’t know. I don’t think so, but that’s not really the type of statistic I looked into before purchasing the house.
Perhaps my cat isn’t peeing on the floor after all. Perhaps she is cooking up crystal meth.
Hmmm, the stuff you learn on this board. That smell was a regular autumn feature on Colgate Avenue in my Pennsylvania hometown; given the climate, it would appear Chinese Chestnut was the culprit.
Actually, though, after having read the whole thread, the real unanswered question is, “What makes sperm smell like sperm?”
I find sometimes that some Eucalyptus ( specifically, I’m thinking Blue Gum here ) can give off a “stale cat-pee” odor. Other times they smell great. Never have been systematic enough to figure out if it is a seasonal thing.
I’ll snap a photo if my memory and my senses can get along and be friends with one another, just for one day. Cecil’s search actually upturned a great number of possible culprits, I just have nofrigginclue which one is “mine” (bad word. I don’t want any responsibility for this shit).
I don’t know, but after typing “sperm smell” into Google I DO know that sperm “smell” their way to eggs. Intermestin.
Oh, wait. here it is. Seems something called “spermine” causes the odor. What it origins and purposes are, however, I’m still clueless.
Yeesh, tell me about it. I live in an area with a. a ton of Crystal Meth labs and b. a ton of stray cats.
Nonsense, the ginkgo fruits smell like concentrated Eau de Armpit. They are also a favored edible in parts of the Far East. (Don’t want stench? Plant male ginkgos).
A nice present for that special someone is a carrion flower plant (Stapelia). The most common species is a succulent that grows well on windowsills and has huge star-shaped flowers that smell like rotting flesh. I knew someone who had theirs visited by flies, and maggots hatched in it.
It’s not quite the same message as giving someone a dozen roses, but certainly more memorable.
Did you mean “spermidine”? That’s a protein found in sperm. We use it at work in restriction enzyme digests for Southern blots, and when you open that little tube, there’s a definite spunky whiff. Oh, and we get ours from salmon sperm, so save the jokes… Or at least rewrite them.
They’re both polyamine compounds; spermidine is C[sub]7[/sub]H[sub]19[/sub]N[sub]3[/sub], spermine C[sub]10[/sub]H[sub]26[/sub]N[sub]4[/sub]. Both found in “boy batter”.
You think that’s scary, imagine what the Fundamentlist have to come up with for ‘intelligent design’?
God: Arcangel Michael, come quick! Eve is about to walk into the Sperm Tree Grove!
Arcangel Michael: Look at her turn up her nose! :Wipes tear: That’s hilarious!
I thought they were called Japanese Bukkake Willows. Learn something new every day.
