When I was growing up, Old Spice was for old men, and every cool guy knew you were supposed to bathe in Polo. These days the odor du jour is Axe, I guess.
Old Spice has grown on me. I don’t use it myself, but it’s a pleasing, comforting scent, in small doses of course.
[QUOTE=Mister Rik via wikipedia]
However, the plant Mimulus is today largely scentless, all specimens having almost simultaneously lost their distinctive odor for no apparent reason in the mid-twentieth century.
[/QUOTE]
Anyone have any insight into this?
It’s perfectly acceptable to resurrect an old thread with pertinent new information.
Well, as it says, “for no apparent reason.” What I think the original poster found humorous, as do I, is the implicit possibility that it was sort of an evolutionary adaptation/natural selection process, i.e. since people kept cutting down all the ones that were smelly, the non-smelly ones simply were able to take over.
That said, it should be noted that that part has long since been removed from the Wikipedia article (the edit on November 18, 2007 with the note “remove uncited claim”). There’s a good chance it was B.S., since all that time nobody’s put it back with any kind of verification. The article on that plant (Erythranthe moschata - Wikipedia) also doesn’t mention it, which if it were a thing, would certainly warrant a mention. And to see if I can squeeze in another edit, other articles from nurseries and plant guides around the web describe it as musky-scented, not “used to musky-scented but currently inexplicably odorless.”
I have been around many old men who reek strongly of Old Spice, who reek even stronger of BO. As a result, even the smell of Old Spice gives me a headache and makes me slightly nauseous.