China (Southern), Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia
Pyramid
Heart
Tiny yellow flowers that smell nothing like flowers. Aglaia reads as lemon drops dissolving on warm leather, with a green-tea dryness underneath — halfway between citrus peel and hay. The closest comparison is mock lemon, but drier, more herbaceous, and underlaid with a sesquiterpene woodiness that gives the scent a quiet, almost resinous gravity.
The first impression is lemony and clean — not the juicy sweetness of bergamot but a drier, more aldehydic citrus, closer to lemon zest left on a warm plate. Underneath, a green-leather character emerges: suede, hay, dried tea leaves. The TGSC odour descriptor reads "green floral leathery fruity herbal woody spicy" — an unusually long list that reflects the material's genuine complexity rather than marketing hyperbole.
Compared to jasmine absolute, aglai a is drier and lacks indole entirely. Compared to osmanthus, it is greener and less lactonic — no apricot, no peach-skin sweetness. Compared to lemongrass, it is more complex and less sharp, with a sesquiterpene backbone (the cadinanes) that gives it woody persistence. The methyl jasmonate component provides a faint floral radiance, but the overall read is closer to a herbarium specimen than to a garden flower. On blotter, the green-leather quality outlasts the citrus by several hours.
Evolution over time
Immediately
Immediately
Bright, almost aldehydic lemon-peel sharpness with a green, herbaceous edge. The methyl jasmonates provide a brief floral lift. Clean, dry, assertive — closer to lemon zest on a hot plate than to any flower.
After a few hours
After a few hours
The citrus fades and the cadinane sesquiterpenes emerge: a warm, woody-leathery character, like dried hay and old suede. A faint tea-leaf astringency threads through. The green facet persists but softens into something more textile than vegetal.
After a few days
After a few days
On blotter after 24-48 hours, a quiet woody-leather warmth remains. The sesquiterpene backbone — delta-cadinene and its oxidation products — provides residual fixative character. The last trace reads as warm, dry wood with a faint herbaceous memory.
Terroir & Origins
Indicative 2025 wholesale prices.
The Full Story
Aglai a odorat a (Meliaceae) is a small persistent dioecious tree, 2-6 metres tall, native to southern Chin a (Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan), Vietnam, Cambodi a, Thail and, Laos, and Myanmar. The genus name derives from the Greek aglai a — splendour — and the species was formally described by Loureiro in 1790. The flowers are tiny, yellow, rice-gra in-sized, borne in dense axillary clusters. They smell nothing like conventional florals: the scent is lemony, leathery, herbaceous, and faintly spicy, with a hay-like dryness that reads more as dried citrus peel than blossom.
Chemistry
GC-MS analysis of the flower essential oil (Weyerstahl et al., Flavour and Fragrance Journal, 1999, 14(4):219-224, Vietnamese origin) reveals a composition dominated by cadinane-type sesquiterpenes — approximately 48% of the oil, with delta-cadinene alone accounting for roughly 27%. Muurola-4,10(14)-dien-1-beta-ol contributes approximately 4%. Methyl jasmonates, also at approximately 4%, are disproportionately important to the odour: they provide the jasmine-adjacent brightness that distinguishes aglaia from purely woody-green materials. Linalool, beta-caryophyllene, alpha-humulene, copaene, beta-elemene, and beta-selinene round out the volatile profile. A separate study on the stem oil (2014) identified germacrene D (20.3%), alpha-humulene (17.1%), alpha-himachalene (12.7%), and beta-caryophyllene (10.2%) as the major components — chemically distinct from the flower oil.
Terroir and Sourcing
Aglaia odorata grows in sparse forests and wet scrublands, often on clayey soils. Southern China remains the primary source for commercial production. The flowers are hand-picked from the clusters and processed rapidly. CO2 supercritical extraction (25 MPa, 40 degrees C, 80 minutes) yields approximately 2.64% oil on a dry-weight basis. Solvent extraction (hexane) produces a concrete, subsequently washed with ethanol to obtain the absolute — a yellow to brown viscous liquid.
Cultural Context
In China, dried aglaia flowers are used to scent tea and are placed inside wooden chests to perfume stored linens — a practice that exploits the material's substantivity and its clean, citrus-herbaceous character. The flowers appear in local markets throughout southern China and Southeast Asia. The tree also has a long history in traditional medicine: roots boiled in water as an appetite stimulant, dried flowers for mouth ulcers and fever reduction, branches and leaves for rheumatic pain. None of these claims should be confused with the tree's separate pharmacological interest — the genus Aglaia produces rocaglamide derivatives, potent eIF4A inhibitors under investigation as anticancer agents.
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Did You Know?
Did you know?
The same genus that produces this delicate perfumery flower also biosynthesises rocaglamide, a cyclopenta[b]benzofuran first characterised by King et al. in 1982 via single-crystal X-ray diffraction. Rocaglamide and its derivatives are potent inhibitors of the eIF4A RNA helicase, with cytotoxicity against human cancer cell lines demonstrated at IC50 values as low as 0.007 micromolar (Proksch et al., 2005). A tree cultivated for its scent is simultaneously a promising sources of translation-inhibiting anticancer candidates in current pharmacology.
Extraction & Chemistry
Extraction method: Solvent extraction (hexane) of fresh flowers to produce a concrete, followed by ethanol washing to yield the absolute. CO2 supercritical extraction is an increasingly common alternative: at 25 MPa and 40 degrees C for 80 minutes, oil yield reaches approximately 2.64% on a dry-weight basis (Li et al., Chinese J. Chromatogr., 2007). The tiny flowers are hand-picked from axillary clusters. Steam distillation of the flowers has also been documented for analytical purposes (Weyerstahl et al., 1999), though the absolute and CO2 extract are the commercial forms most relevant to perfumery. Essential oil via hydrodistillation is also available from some suppliers. The genus Aglaia encompasses over 100 species within Meliaceae; only A. odorata is used in fragrance production.
No specific IFRA standard for aglaia absolute as of the 51st Amendment (June 2023). As a complex natural, it contains trace levels of linalool and other regulated components subject to EU allergen labelling requirements under Regulation 2023/1545 when present above threshold concentrations (0.001% leave-on, 0.01% rinse-off) in the finished product.
Synonyms
CHINESE PERFUME PLANT · CHINESE RICE FLOWER · MOCK LEMON
Physical Properties
Odor Strength
Medium
Appearance
yellow to brown liquid
Specific Gravity
0.87000 to 0.91000 @ 20.00 °C.
Refractive Index
1.48700 to 1.50200 @ 20.00 °C.
In Perfumery
Heart-to-base modifier with an unusual green-leather-citrus character. Aglai a occupies a narrow but particular register: it reads simultaneously citrus-bright and leathery-dry, without the sweetness of orange blossom or the indole of jasmine. In a formul a, it contributes a hay-like warmth and a green-tea astringency that anchors volatile top notes while adding textural interest to the heart. Functionally, the absolute is a bridging note between citrus and woody-leather families. The cadinane sesquiterpenes (~48% of the flower oil) provide fixative weight and woody depth. The methyl jasmonates (~4%) contribute a jasmine-adjacent radiance without true indolic character. Dosage is typically 0.1-1% of the concentrate, constrained both by cost and by the material's assertive profile. Synthetic reconstructi on is rare. No single molecule replicates the aglai a scent profile, though combinations of linalool, methyl jasmonate (CAS 39924-52-2), delt a-cadinene, and traces of 2-phenylethanol can approximate the general directi on. The material remains a niche ingredient, used primarily in high-end naturals-based perfumery and in East Asian-inspired compositions where its lem on-tea-leather character is structurally appropriate. No confirmed presence in the current Premiere Peau collecti on.
