Cananga odorata
Ylang-ylang, perfume tree, flower of flowers: that is what its name means in Tagalog, and perfumery proves it right. Its star-shaped yellow flowers form the heart of many great perfumes, starting with Chanel N°5. It takes around fifty kilos of flowers to obtain a single litre of essential oil, which explains its value.
Characteristics:
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Highly fragrant flowers: long and drooping, pale green before turning golden yellow at maturity, with an intense, sweet fragrance that is released mainly at night.
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Fast growth: in a tropical climate, it reaches 12 to 20 metres; in a pot, it remains much more compact.
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Decorative foliage: large, glossy leaves that make it a beautiful houseplant, even without flowering.
Precautions:
- A strictly tropical tree, it cannot tolerate any frost: in mainland France, it must be grown in a pot, indoors or in a heated greenhouse, with the option of placing it outdoors during summer.
- Flowering in a pot in our climates remains rare and requires plenty of patience and warmth.
Sowing advice:
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Position: very bright, without intense direct sunlight through a window.
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Soil: rich, humus-rich, light and well drained. A mixture of potting soil, compost and sand works well. It appreciates high ambient humidity but dislikes standing water in the saucer.
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Method: unlike temperate species, this tropical seed requires no cold stratification, which would actually be harmful. Soak it for 24 to 48 hours in lukewarm water, then sow it 1 cm deep in a substrate kept constantly warm and moist (25–30 °C). Germination is slow and irregular: allow 1 to 3 months, sometimes longer.
Care advice:
- Water regularly with soft water, allowing the surface to dry slightly between waterings. Mist the foliage.
- Overwinter indoors, in a warm place (never below 15 °C), reducing watering.
Benefits for biodiversity:
- In its native range, its nocturnal fragrance attracts moths and bats, which pollinate it — a strategy typical of highly fragrant white or pale flowers.
Uses:
- Its flowers are distilled to produce ylang-ylang essential oil, used in perfumery and soapmaking.
- When grown in a pot, it is primarily an ornamental houseplant with exotic foliage.
Symbolism:
In the Philippines and Indonesia, its flowers are traditionally scattered over newlyweds' beds, making it a symbol of union and sensuality.
Harvesting your own seeds:
After flowering, the tree produces small green fruits that turn black when ripe and grow in clusters. Remove the seeds from the pulp, rinse them and sow them promptly: they quickly lose their ability to germinate when they dry out. See how to store your seeds.
Commitment to Quality: at SemiSauvage - Permaculture, we grow and select our seeds with respect for living things as our guiding principle. Based near the Auvergne Volcanoes, we choose reproducible, non-hybrid varieties, tested for their germination rate, sorted and carefully packaged, with no chemical treatment. Our belief: to give gardeners back the ability to resow, year after year, seeds that truly belong to them.
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