New book - The Scent of Orchids by Dr. Roman Kaiser

[astrid]

Hey everyone!!

For those of you interested in the science behind orchid scents, this is a wonderful book. I am just in love with Dr. Kaiser's work!!

This 280 page book details his experimental method to extract scent moluecules from all sorts of flowers without harming the flower. It allows him to study and recreate the scents of endangered species without harming their numbers.

The book describes the types of orchids by their pollinators: those pollinated by moths, those pollinated by flies (stinky bulbophyllums and so on), and those pollinated by bees.

He describes the characteristics of orchid scents, and the book contains many many gorgeous full-color photos of the orchids he has studied.

The book doesn't discuss intergeneric orchids; I believe he mainly focused on species found in nature.

If you're a science nerd with a bit of a chemistry background, this book will certainly tickle your fancy- maybe even your nose!

It is $180-280 retail, so it is best to borrow this book in the library. The author is Swiss, so I am sure German language versions are available.

[WhiteRabbit]

Sounds cool!

[tropterrarium]

The book is a translation of his 1993 German pub in Edition Roche. It does not look like as if it has been updated, so the info is about 20 years old. Natural products chemistry is advancing rapidly. On amazon, you can see an extensive preview of the new English edition by Elsevier (which explains the price). Looks pretty enough, but is very unlikely to be up to date.

[astrid]

Originally Posted by tropterrarium

The book is a translation of his 1993 German pub in Edition Roche. It does not look like as if it has been updated, so the info is about 20 years old. Natural products chemistry is advancing rapidly. On amazon, you can see an extensive preview of the new English edition by Elsevier (which explains the price). Looks pretty enough, but is very unlikely to be up to date.

The methodology is sound. Gathering the scent molecules and analyzing them via gas chromatography and mass spectrometry doesn't magically change in 20 years.

This is based on very simple chemistry. Perfumeries have used the same base ingredients for several decades; the instruments get more precise, but the results remain the same.

Reading a book on astrophysics written in 1993 might be out of date. Reading a book on medicine in 1993 might be out of date. However, reading a book that describes a simple analysis of chemical components of a fragrance is not out of date.
The flowers, unless they become hybridized and rapidly change their genetic structure and scent output, still make the same fragrance today as they did in 1993.

As a chemist, I have to stand up for this wonderful sample of his body of work, which dates back to the 1960s.

[tropterrarium]

I have not done GC-MS myself, but overall, analytical instrumentations have improved by leaps in the past 20 years. Comparing DNA sequence reads from the early 1990's autoradiographs with today's chromatograms from capillary machines is quite a revelation. SEM resolution has vastly improved from a tungsten gun on a Philips 512 to todays FE-guns with beam-decelleration column. I bet separation accuracy, signal to noise ratios, and identifying minor peaks has also vastly improved in methods like GC-MS or HPLC. Information on multiple samples, intraspecific variability, ecophenotypic variability, number of species examined, etc. has certainly also gotten traction.
Basic info is most likely mostly confirmed, like in math 1+1 is still 2. However, the largest prime number in the 1990's is far smaller than the largest known today. Accordingly, the conclusions that can be reached and the overall picture that emerges has certainly changed.
my 2c.

[astrid]

This is a man who catalogues the scents of as many things as he possibly can, including endangered flower species. Once you've discovered the scent composition, you've discovered it. At least the primary components in the mix are known.

The book describes his experimental procedure (which I am modeling for myself to try in an independent small-scale reproduction), he describes the scent families, he describes a number of orchid classifications and probably about 100 species of orchid.

Maybe there were some scent components missed by instruments in the early 90s and before, but for the most part I cannot fathom how this would be so outdated as to not be worth examining and appreciating.

You're comparing apples to oranges when you speak of prime numbers here. We've made technological advancements, but you saying that his work is outdated is like saying Julia Child's cookbooks are outdated.

The "recipes" are the same, the basic procedures are the same, but the instrumentation has advanced.

I don't think that Vanda tesselata's molecular fragrance composition has changed from 61.5% methyl benzoate, 23.0% linalool, 5.1% (E)-cinnamic aldehyde, and smaller fragments of the other 20 or so molecules in its composition since 1993.

A cake is still made with flour, eggs, sugar, and so on.

I wholeheartedly believe that these results are completely reproducible with modern instrumentation.

[tropterrarium]

100 out of 30,000 species is a tiny sample. I bet some additional species have been looked at. I think for instance of the Stanhopea book by Rudolph Jenny from 2010, incidentally also a Swiss, and also a chemist. The journal literature certainly had a paper or two on that topic, some even by Kaiser.

Inferences from limited sample size are always fraught with pitfalls. That is the whole reason for changing phylogenies. Different underlying data, different conclusion, both in terms of taxon sampling as well as in amount of data per taxon. The lower the sample size, the greater the probability and degree of difference once more data are added.

I guarantee that the V. tessellate scent molecule composition varies amongst populations and strains. Identical to the last decimal percentage point is EXTREMELY unlikely. I'm no chemist, but I am a biologist, and variability is what makes biology so fascinating. In terms of ranking, most likely the same across the specimens, but it would be interesting to know range of values based on n>1.

I have no beef about this book, but one needs to recognize that the info is 20 years old. Same is true for Darwin's "Origin of Species" etc., still a classic, but we have made some advances in the meantime. Basic framework is ok, but we have come a long way since.

[orchidsarefun]

tropterrarium - I don't understand why a recommendation of a book - to read - is a problem to you. This is not a peer review forum. A book available to the general public for interest's sake has essentially a different purpose to material published for academia.
If you can recommend a 'better' book in your opinion - with more 'samples' - then do so.

[Tschimm]

Interesting person anyway.
He wrote another book about scents of endangered species.

[tropterrarium]

Oaf: no problem with a book. However a "new" book suggests 2014 information which isn't the case here. At that price a prospective buyer should be aware of what he/she gets. I purchase books regularly have about 8 linear feet of orchid books and that is just a hobby. Pro library on marine mollusks and other inverts is MUCH more extensive.


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