Pale yellow to amber viscous liquid with a green-woody character
Odor Strength
Medium
Producing Countries
Japan (Okinawa), Southeast Asia, India, Australia
Pyramid
Heart
Green, humid, rootbound. Gajumaru smells like standing inside a banyan's aerial root curtain after rain -- damp bark, crushed fig leaf, and the warm vegetal breath of tropical wood.
Green, damp, latex-tinged fig leaf over warm tropical wood and wet earth. More humid and rootbound than standard fig accords, less sweet than coconut-tropical notes. The aerial-root impression brings a musty, bark-like quality absent from clean fig-leaf soliflores. The overall effect is enclosed, shaded, vegetal -- the smell of a place, not an ingredient.
Evolution over time
Immediately
Immediately
Green fig-leaf snap, damp bark, humid air
After a few hours
After a few hours
Warm tropical wood emerges, earthy depth deepens
After a few days
After a few days
Quiet woody-green warmth, musty bark trace
The Full Story
Gajumaru is the Okinawan name for Ficus microcarpa, a banyan-family fig tree with extensive aerial roots. In perfumery, the note carries the atmospheric green-woody impression of the living tree rather than any specific extraction. The name carries cultural weight in Japan, particularly in Okinawa where ancient gajumaru are considered sacred.
The olfactory impression of a banyan environment combines several elements: the green, slightly latex-like smell of crushed fig leaves (from psoralen and bergapten compounds), the damp bark of aerial roots (earthy, slightly musty), the humid air trapped within the root canopy, and the warm, sweet background of tropical decomposing wood. No commercial extraction exists.
The accord is reconstructed using fig leaf absolute or synthetic fig-leaf molecules (gamma-octalactone, stemone), damp-earth notes (geosmin, vetiver), green-woody elements (galbanum, cis-3-hexenol), and a warm wood base. It functions as a green-woody atmospheric note in the heart zone, providing a tropical forest reference point.
This note in Première Peau. Simili Mirage · Gravitas Capitale. Sample all seven extraits in the Discovery Set.
Okinawans believe kijimuna -- red-haired forest spirits -- live in the aerial roots of old gajumaru trees. The oldest known specimen on the island, in Nago, is estimated at over 300 years and has a root spread exceeding 30 metres.
Extraction & Chemistry
Extraction method: No commercial extraction exists for Ficus microcarpa. The atmospheric note is reconstructed from fig leaf absolute, green-leaf synthetics, earthy molecules (geosmin, vetiver), and tropical wood bases.
Pale yellow to amber viscous liquid with a green-woody character
In Perfumery
Gajumaru/banyan is an atmospheric accord functioning as a green-woody heart note. It carries the microclimate inside a tropical banyan tree: fig leaves, damp bark, humid air. Built from fig leaf absolute or gamma-octalactone, geosmin (petrichor/earth), galbanum, cis-3-hexenol, and warm wood bases. The note works in tropical, green, and naturalistic forest compositions as a place-evocation rather than a single-ingredient reference.
