Magnolia champaca, Michelia champaca
Family: Magnoliaceae
Joy perfume tree, Huang Yu Lan, Safa
Origin: India, Indonesia
The flowers from this tree are used to make the world’s most expensive perfume ‘Joy’. The extremely aromatic orange blooms appear nearly all year round. Grows to the size of a large shrub or small tree, 15-20′ in height. It is a tropical tree, however established plants can tolerate light freeze. Yellow Champaca is much more cold tolerant than var. Alba.
People did not invent JOY perfume, Nature made this creation leading to the development of JOY, the most expensive perfume fragrance in the world. Michelia flowers produce in great quantities. On a warm humid night, the scents can easily be enjoyed several hundred feet away. If you drive near by, you will notice the scent immediately. People and every insect you can imagine are attracted to the blooms. These are flowers you don’t have to “stick your nose in” as the scent exudes from the tree. However, you really can’t STOP sticking your nose into a flower over and over again. Nectar insects appear frantic, driven like drug addicts, bashing into each other to get to the heart of every flower on the tree. Planting a Michelia tree either indoors as bonsai or in your backyard really makes your home a sweet home. Also you could take the flower, home made natural perfume, into car, office, rest room, and anywhere you want fragrant atmosphere. One oriental custom is to use the white flowers as sweet scented decoration, such as hair-pin-flower for girls, and chest-pin-flower for ladies. The tree has flowers and green leaves all year round, beautifying its surroundings. Besides, the clearly veined leaf can be made into a special bookmark. M. Champaka are much more hardier plants than M. Alba and the flower has a sweet fragnance. The M. Alba has root stock of champaka. If you will but forth the effort in taken care of the plant, you will be rewarded many times over via the fragrance. The smell is heavenly.
