The Simplest of Delights: The Scent of a Russian Olive Tree

My knowledge as an arborist is next-door to non-existent. I can identify a few trees by the shape of their leaves—oak and maples, mostly—and a few more by the look of their bark—birch and poplars aren't too hard—but beyond that I am not an especially adept woodsman. I would like to grow in this area of my life. Sometimes when I'm hiking in the woods I'll stumble across a plant or a flower that's especially interesting, and I'll wish I could call it by name. There's a kind of love expressed in taking the time to learn a thing's name, I think, and it's a kind of love I wish I was better at expressing.

There is one tree, however, that I've taken the time to get to know. It's the elaeagnus angustifolia, more commonly known as the Russian olive. If you don't recognize the name, the Russian olive, or wild olive, or silver berry tree, is a native of central Asia that arrived in North America in the 19th Century and has since spread slowly throughout the continent. You might recognize it by it's thin, silvery-green leaves or perhaps its delicate yellow flowers. The silver sheen of the plant is especially striking, but that's not what I love about the elaeagnus angustifolia.

It's the scent. The Russian olive has a highly aromatic flower, with a fragrance redolent of cinnamon and rose and jasmine. That's the closest I can get, anyways. It is actually one of the hardest smells for me to describe, because I've never smelled anything quite like a Russian olive tree. It's this soft, gentle, heady, sweet smell that settles over you and envelops you almost before you realize its there. And then, when you do, it's all you can think about.

I've noticed it tends to get stronger as the sun is setting and the evening is sinking into the warm, twilight drowsiness of a summer nightfall.

The scent travels, too, drifting for yards away from the tree. I'll be out for a summer-evening walk, lost in thought, when suddenly, like the olfactory version of a siren-song, a scent of Russian olive will waft over me. I'll stop to breathe it in, scanning my surroundings for the tree that's emitting it. Often it's not even visible. Maybe it's coming from someone's back yard three houses down. Or when I do eventually find it it will be somewhere, maybe, down at the end of the street. But the scent is so distinctive, and the smell is so good, that I know there's a Russian olive somewhere, inviting passers-by for yards and yards around to stop and savor its silver-sweet fragrance.

I'm not trying to wax poetic.

It's just that last week I shared some thoughts about hedonic well being—the science of feeling good—and I suggested that one of the ways to help the human heart flourish is to build intentional moments of joy into your day. If I were to name one smell that is guaranteed to improve my hedonic well being—even more than fresh baked cookies or newly-mown grass—it's the scent of a Russian olive tree on a soft summer breeze.

I'm writing this in the dead of winter, of course, so it may be months before I'll smell my next elaeagnus angustifolia in bloom. But even taking the time today to remember how it feeds the heart to catch a whiff of one from far off, is helping me today to "generate some positive affect" (to put it in terms of the positive psychology I cited in the last post).

More than just increasing my positive affect though, the memory of the scent of a Russian olive tree is helping me to think about the delight that can, and should, characterize my relationship with God. One of the things that has always stood out to me in the Narnia books, C. S. Lewis's allegorical children's series exploring aspects of life with God, is the way Lewis lingers lovingly over the many sweet fragrances that fill the air whenever the Lion Aslan is around. In the symbolism of the stories, Aslan is Lewis's literary vehicle for exploring the character of God. And whenever he shows up on the scene, indescribably good smells fill the air. With the memory of a Russian olive lingering in my nose this afternoon, it does not at all surprise me that when Lewis wants to describe how delightful it is to know and be known by God, he refers to every rich-smelling, fragrantly-perfumed thing he can imagine.

Lewis apparently was unfamiliar with the elaeagnus angustifolia, because he never once mentions this musky-scented tree in any of his descriptions of Aslan. I can't imagine him overlooking it, if he had known how fragrant it is. Because for my money, if I had to name a scent that gets me thinking all over again about how delightful life with the Lord really is, I don't know if I could do better than to name a Russian olive tree.

After all, what does it tell you about the joyful goodness of our God if, in addition to all the other, infinitely wondrous things he's done for us, he also took the time to think up such a fragrance as that of the Russian Olive tree, for the sheer delight of it.