PlantFiles: Chinese Perfume Plant, Chinese Rice Flower, Mock Lemon
Aglaia odorata

A quietly beautiful shrub with a sweet, delicate, refined and elusive yet far-reaching fragrance. This plant is very easy to grow, and yet I lost my original specimen (growing in a smallish clay pot) when it was not watered while I was away for more than a month. My bad. Otherwise, it will bloom regularly and grow healthily (albeit slowly) in the poorest light, the driest air and the coldest/warmest indoor temperatures you can throw at it. To my nose, the fragrance is not as heady or spectacular as a gardenia or a jasmine, but it is so pure, clean and lemony-floral-spicy-tea sweet that it seems to refresh and brighten the atmosphere of any room it is placed in. It is truly one of my all-time favorite smells since there are never any “off notes” and it floats lightly yet unobtrusively on the surrounding air. A gardenia might wow you until you learn about its temper tantrums after trying to live with one for a while, but Aglaia odorata is one of those plants that will never fail to please. When it comes to house plants, slow, steady and congenial will win the race every time. And if it happens to have one of the prettiest and most unusually addictive scents in the floral kingdom, so much the better.

I have not grown this plant. Chinese Perfume Plant, Chinese Rice Flower, Mock Lemon (Aglaia odorata) is a native plant in China. It appears to grow well in the Hawaiian Islands.

I have had four Aglaia's for five years. One of the best plants I have. Fertilized or unfertilized, boggy mud or hard clay, shade or sun, they always look (and smell) wonderful. No pests either. Added benefit - holds up well to dog urine.

I keep it as an indoor plant so it can fill my house with its lovely scent! Its not much to look at, kind of like a boxwood shrub but oh the smell! The flowers are small and not very showy but they make up for it in scent.