Are All Allspice Bushes Fragrant?

Comparing Species

• Both species of allspice bushes native to North American produce flowers that are fragrant, although with noticeably different aromas. The western sweetshrub's dark red blossoms smell of a blend of musk and wine. Carolina allspice flowers are also dark red, but with slightly wider petals. The fragrance of these blossoms is usually pleasant--a blend of strawberry, melon, banana and pineapple scents. The Chinese sweetshrub's plump white flowers lack floral fragrance.

Fragrance Variations

• When grown from seed, both North American species produce plants of varying fragrance qualities. For example, if the parent shrub is sweetly fragrant, planting its seeds yields plants with varying fragrance intensities or degrees of sweetness. Some Carolina allspice shrubs can yield flowers that smell more like vinegar than sweet fruits, according to Michael Dirr, American woody plant expert from the University of Georgia. To preserve plants with the best fragrances, they are propagated by cuttings, which perpetuates the genes that create the pleasant fragrant flower oils.

Selecting Allspice Bushes

• When visiting the plant nursery to purchase an allspice bush for your garden, go when the plants are in bloom. Western sweetshrub blooms intermittently from late spring to early fall. The Carolina allspice shrubs bloom most heavily from mid to late spring, anytime from April to June. Smell the flowers. Only purchase plants in bloom to verify that their floral fragrance is agreeable. Do not rely on plant labels alone to tell you or verify that the plant's flowers are fragrant. Only purchase blooming plants with a pleasant growth habit and flower petal tint and aroma. If selected out of flower, more uncertainty remains as to the plant's flowering features, especially since fragrance is subjective.

Hybrids

• Cultivars "Venus" and "Hartlage Wine" resulted from controlled breeding between Chinese and Carolina allspice shrubs--a hybrid plant formerly botanically listed as Sinocalycanthus, but now simply as Calycanthus. Their flowers are a blend of the larger, white petals of the former with fragrant and more numerous red petals of the latter species. The fragrance of these cultivars' blooms is faint and sweet, but on some shrubs can be so faint as to seem scentless.