When Scent Trumps Color

From Matthew Appleby in The Guardian:

Sweet peas are prized both for their exquisite scent and their colour. Dave Matthewman of Matthewman’s Sweetpeas says it’s scent rather than colour that customers ask about first when he launches a new variety: “If you say the scent is mediocre, they lose interest. Blues and lavenders are highly scented, but cream-pinks and orange-pinks often don’t have much.”

If only the fresh-cut flower industry would notice that people prefer scented flowers. (In WTNK I describe how breeders in that business select for showy blossoms at the expense of scent.)