Sperm trees

The nights have finally gotten warm, and an unmistakable harbinger of summer scents the evening air. The sperm trees are giving off pollen, and they smell powerfully and unmistakably like semen. I've always really loved it when I'd smell them riding around on my bike on a balmy night in Atlanta, and now that I'm in Portland, I'm glad they have sperm trees too.

It took me years to figure out which tree was producing the smell, then more time to figure out what they were called. They're Ailanthus altissima, AKA "Tree of Heaven." They're considered weeds, since they'll grow out of cracks in a city sidewalk, get really big really fast, and undermine building foundations. But they will also grow into large, attractive, slightly tropical looking trees. The most disagreeable thing to most people, is the scent, though it's what I like.

So, if you're riding around on your bike in the early summer, and you get a whiff of deeply funky semen in the air, now you know where it came from-- the Tree of Heaven.

Info
http://site.www.umb.edu/conne/jennjim/ailanthus.html

Pictures
http://tncweeds.ucdavis.edu/esadocs/ailaalti.html