Cannonball Flower

Note Profile

Botanical

About

The flower of the cannonball tree, Couroupita guianensis. A strong night-scented tropical flower that is clove-spicy over a rose-honey floral body.

Scent Profile

Warm_spice comes from the chemistry: eugenol is 46.20% of the total volatiles, the clove and carnation molecule. Floral is 2-phenylethanol at 34.82%, which is the rose-alcohol, supported by nerol and geraniol at about 3% each. Those two together are the shape of a spicy floral, which is why this note reads closer to the published `carnation` and `hoary-stock` than to the green tropical flowers it sits beside in the vocabulary. White_floral carries what the botanical sources actually smelled: NTBG calls the flowers 'heavenly scented - a cross between a fine expensive perfume and a wonderful flower scent', NParks calls them 'highly-fragrant', and Wikipedia records that they are 'strongly scented, and are especially fragrant at night and in the early morning', which is the night-blooming white-floral pattern. Below the naming line, honeyed and sweet_vanillic carry farnesol at 5.53%, tropical the setting, and green the fresh flower itself. THE FRUIT IS NOT THE NOTE. Three sources independently call the fruit pulp 'repugnant' or 'unpleasant smelling'. None of that is scored here, because the note is the flower.

ScentWheel

Breadthmedium

EnvelopeHeart · ~6h lasting

Family Spicy, Floral

Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.

Origin

Botanical. The flowers grow straight from the trunk of the tree in South America and South Asia, are pink, red and yellow, and last a single day. Steam-distilled flower oil from El Salvador was 46.20% eugenol and 34.82% 2-phenylethanol, with smaller farnesol, nerol, geraniol and benzyl alcohol.

Usage in Perfumery

Not a commercial perfumery raw material. No named supplier sells a cannonball flower absolute or oil. The note appears in finished perfumes as a reconstruction. NTBG states the flowers 'can be used to scent perfumes and cosmetics'.