Portulaca or Pigweed
Note Profile
About
Portulaca oleracea is purslane, a low succulent weed eaten as a potherb and called pigweed in parts of the English-speaking world. It smells faintly green and sour. Two independent sources say the smell is weak before they say anything else: Fine Gardening writes that the leaves 'do not have much odor', and the Premiere Peau glossary calls it 'Almost the absence of strong scent: clean, fresh, unassuming'. What is there is a wet vegetal green with a lemony-tart edge, closer to a cut succulent than to a herb or a flower.
Scent Profile
Green leads and every source that describes a smell at all puts it first: 'Faintly green, sour-fresh, succulent', 'green-vegetal scent', 'A quiet, hydrated green'. It is not pushed because two sources also say the material is faint, and a high number here is a claim about character, not loudness. Sour is the second facet and it has three sources behind it, which is more than the green has: Premiere Peau's 'lemony-sour edge' and 'slightly sour-citric', Fine Gardening's 'lemony tart', Backyard Forager's 'a tart, lemony flavor'. Two of those three describe taste rather than smell, which is why it stays rather than higher. Aquatic_ozonic carries the wetness, from 'slightly mucilaginous', 'succulent', 'a quiet, hydrated green' and the filing under 'aqueous-green' compositions. It is a single source, so the spread. Citrus is the lemon in 'lemony-sour' and 'sour-citric', separated from sour because both words are used together and neither substitutes for the other. Below, aromatic_herbal comes from 'slightly herby' and the 'mild-herbal' filing. Clean_musk and mineral are small readings of 'clean, fresh, unassuming' and the mucilage, not claims anyone made directly.
ScentWheel
Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.
Origin
Portulaca oleracea, a sprawling annual succulent found on every inhabited continent, eaten as verdolagas in Mexico and as a salad green across the Mediterranean and South Asia. The tartness is attributed by Premiere Peau to oxalic and malic acid in the sap. There is no commercial essential oil in perfumery use. A published GC-MS study of the essential oil reports linalool, limonene and borneol as the major peaks, but the dossier could not open the full text, so those compounds are not used to support any facet here.
Usage in Perfumery
A quiet green modifier rather than a note that carries a composition. Premiere Peau files it as a heart note and as a 'top-note modifier for aqueous-green and mild-herbal compositions'. Attested 3 times on Fragrantica and not at all on Parfumo. Fragrantica files it under Greens, herbs and fougeres.
Similar Notes
Perfumes featuring Portulaca or Pigweed
A selection of reviewed perfumes where Portulaca or Pigweed appears prominently.
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