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.