When I got home on Friday, I noticed a musty, closed-up smell in my office. It hadn't been there that morning. I didn't like it. Since the above-mentioned packages had arrived during the day, and since the Wife had stored them in my office, my natural inclination was that the persistent stench was emanating from them. This made sense if the contents or boxes had been taken from, say, a dedicated storage area infused with mothballs. Because mothballs was the smell I had in my office.
I hate mothball odor. It is wretched and vile. If I need moth repellant, I'll go with cedar every time.
So I remove all packaging from my office and throw it away. Then I moved the contents of said packaging into the garage. The odor lingered in my office, but that was merely the lingering remnants, surely. I closed up and went to bed.
The next morning I opened my office door and was bowled over by a wave of mothball stench. What the heck was going on? I searched in vain for any packaging I might have missed the day before. Nothing. I searched my office for an obvious source--again, nada. The stink seemed to be coming from every corner. I burned incense in an attempt to cover it up. The mothball smell laughed at my feeble smoke. I turned on the ceiling fan. That only made the smell stronger and spread it around. I literally couldn't stand to be in my office, the smell was so strong. What's worse, the smell was permeating the rest of the house, even with my office doors closed.
Did I mention how much I hate mothball smell? We were doomed.
In desperation, I opened the windows in my office to let in some fresh air, and then I saw them:
One of my passiflora mexicana plants, which I'd nurtured through the winter and protected for all manner of plant-killing hazard, had bloomed. It was showing off two pretty little 1" flowers. Attractive, isn't it? Don't let it's looks deceive you. This one's a evil little thing, I assure you. That's it--two little flowers putting out more odor than any other passion flower I've ever had.
I'd heard that mexicana smelled unpleasant, but hadn't worried about it. After all, I'd heard the same about passiflora foetida, but my gossypiifolia growing in the back yard is only vaguely musky in a greenish sort of way that is pretty much inconsequential. But wow, this mexicana wasn't playing games. I extricated it from my office and moved it outside, where it proceeded to open four more flowers the next day. Took several hours for my office's air to clear afterwards, even with windows open and fans blowing.
I worked a long time to acquire that plant and another just like it. There's a lot to like about it, and it's very rare in the nursery trade--practically non-existent, in fact. So I'm happy as a hog in slop that it's finally blooming but man, it's strictly an outdoor plant. And a downwind one at that.
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