A rose by any other IUPAC name...

Today is Valentine's Day, and what's more quintessentially appropriate than roses? If you're enjoying the scent of flowers today, you have chemicals (*gasp*) to thank!

Here's a few of those chemicals found naturally in the scent of various rose cultivars:

Enjoy your terpenes, everyone!

References (further reading for the brave)

1. Flament, I., Debonneville, C., and Furrer, A. (1993). Volatile constituents of roses: Characterization of cultivars based on the headspace analysis of living flower emissions. In Bioactive Volatile Compounds from Plants, R. Teranishi, R.G. Buttery, and H. Sugisawa, eds (Washington, DC: American Chemical Society), pp. 269–281. DOI: 10.1021/bk-1993-0525.ch019
2. Charles S. Sell. (2003). A fragrant introduction to terpenoid chemistry. Cambridge: RSC, Royal Society of Chemistry. pp. 256–257. ISBN 978-0-85404-681-2.