The Phantom Fragrance of Extinct Flowers, Part 2

The essence of lost plants—genetically resurrected through synthetic biology

In my previous blog post, I talked about how perfumes are made and how biotechnology is changing the fragrance industry. Today I’ll focus on one synthetic biology company that decided to bring back extinct flower scents—and how they did it.

I first came across the outlandish idea of bringing back an extinct flower scent in a synbio magazine article. This mind-bending story described the quest to resurrect an almost mythical 8-foot-tall flower, Leucadendron grandiflorum, that used to grow near what is now known as Cape Town, South Africa. This area was once covered by a diverse carpet of shrubs and swept by frequent wildfires. The majestic flowers went extinct in the late 1800s, after the arrival of European colonialists who planted neat rows of wheat and vineyards in place of the native flora.

Today, a small part of this area has been reclaimed for restoration, bringing back some of the plants that have defined this landscape for millennia—but without the iconic blossoms. Ecologists are hoping to bring Leucadendron grandiflorum back from the dead through prescribed burns, which are needed to germinate its seeds. But in the meanwhile, synthetic biologists have brought back its scent—or at least, an approximation of it.

The video above imagines what the landscape dotted with Leucandendron flowers may have looked like.

This part captured my imagination—a scent of something that no longer exists, a resurrected memory of a piece of nature that may be forever lost… This project was so audacious, that any bystander would have doomed it for failure. Yet, a few crazy scientists set out on a mission to recreate the essence of this long-lost flower. How, you ask? They did it by plucking a petal from one of the last remaining testimonies that it even existed at all—a dried-up sample pressed between sheets of translucent paper preserved in the Harvard Herbarium.

Although the plant is no longer alive, a memory of it survives recorded in its DNA. DNA molecules are quite durable and can preserve genetic information for decades or even hundreds of years (given the right conditions). Synthetic biologists first sequenced the DNA samples extracted from the dry cells of the dead flowers. They then studied the DNA records to look for genes that might encode enzymes responsible for making the scent of the plant. They copied those genes and inserted them into brewer’s yeast to brew up the fantom fragrance of the extinct flower.

This fascinating project led to the creation of a company called Arcaea. The complex task of creating a fragrance from an inimitable ingredient—a resurrected flower scent—involved science, the craft of perfumery, and imagination. Following years of experimentation, Arcaea launched the brand Future Society, which just presented a line of six fragrances inspired by the imaginary scent of extinct plants. Co-created by biologists and perfumers, these perfumes let people experience what those long-lost flowers may have smelled like.

The ultimate test

I know you are probably dying to know—what DO they smell like?? I was curious too. As soon as I saw the announcement, I went to the website and ordered my sample kit. I even paid extra for 2-day shipping because I could not wait to spray the mythical fragrances on myself. And they did not disappoint.

These fragrances are elegant, unique, well-crafted, and long-lasting. Although they are all flower-inspired, they are quite different from one another. I’ve been trying a new one every day, and I already have my favorites.

Perhaps it’s the emotional attachment to the fate of the impressive Leucadendron grandiflorum, but I immediately fell in love with the warm, sunny scent of Reclaimed Flame. It is citrusy, spicy, with a soft rounded base. It lasts for a good few hours, enveloping you in its gentle warmth, like a cashmere sweater hug. I wonder if its “texture” was inspired by the fuzzy leaves of Leucadendron grandiflorum?

Photo: Leucadendron grandiflorum drawing. Public domain: https://eol.org/media/14111922

My second favorite is Solar Canopy, inspired by a Hawaiian endemic tree species that vanished due to deforestation. Evocative of its tropical environment, it smells sweet and fruity, like mango and lychee, with a dewy freshness of magnolia. It also lasts forever, and I don’t mind.

Grassland Opera is a musky-clean, ephemeral fragrance that tried to recreate the scent of Orbexilum stipulatum, an unassuming flower that used to blossom among the rapids and rocky limestone outcrops in Kentucky's portion of the Ohio River, where the buffalo once roamed. Its population declined alongside that of the buffalo until a dam construction finally flooded its habitat in the 1920s.

Invisible woods recreates the scent of Wendlandia angustifolia, a small flowering tree that once thrived in India's Western Ghats Mountain Range. It has a fresh lime and ginger opening, followed by a grassy vetiver body. But its name hints at an unexpected twist of fate: the tree turns out not to be extinct after all, just overlooked for many decades.

Floating Forest smells of pineapple, coconut, and dusty papyrus. Sweet and milky like oolong, and yet dry like wood. It is inspired by Shorea cuspidate, an extinct tree from the rainforests of Borneo whose branches once grazed the sky at up to 45 meters before logging activities took away its habitat.

Haunted Rose came out very timely for the spooky season. Although its inspiration, Macrostylis villosa, is not a rose, but a small aromatic shrub from South Africa with clusters of white flowers, at the heart of the scent is rose absolute. But I’m also picking up some sweet vanilla and coffee notes (reminiscent of Montale Intense Café) and, surprisingly, some rubbery-latex undertones. This, to me, is a reminder of the scent’s origin—it was born in the lab, and not in a meadow, and pays a tribute to the science which created it.

Resurrect or preserve?

I love the creativity that went into creating these beautiful scents. But some people may not be fully buying into the hype that biotechnology can bring back what we have lost—because these fragrances are only a guess, a product of perfumers’ imagination.

Although DNA sequencing of dead plants’ samples presented some evidence as to what pathways and molecules those extinct species could have made, there is no way to know for sure what they actually smelled like. The fragrance of a flower is composed of a bouquet of molecules released by the plant. The exact ratio of those molecules is unique and depends on the environment it grows in, which makes it express certain genes more than others. So, although we can fantasize about the scent of an extinct flower, we will never know it for sure—unless we manage to resurrect the flower itself.

Today, we don’t have a way of doing that—yet. But what we can do is try to preserve the diversity of flora that we still have. Recent studies estimate that at least 15,000 species of plants and animals are threatened with extinction. And while we are chasing phantom fragrances, other species are becoming ghosts. Let’s not let that happen, because bringing something back from the dead is a lot harder than keeping it alive.