The Mystery of the Breathmint Log
i went out salvaging driftwood a few weeks ago and pulled this piece back in. i liked the strange, burly pattern near its root. i reckoned it portended some figure underneath. without bark or leaves or even branches, visual ID is difficult.
on first crosscut i thought it was almost too rotten to be very usable, but i discovered something else: the smell.
this mf smells exactly - not exaggerating - exactly like spearmint gum. it's pungent. it fills up the nose with a distinctly breath-freshening aroma. i couldn't believe it. i thought i was having a stroke. i've since ruled that out.
i live in the pacific northwest of the usa, just south of vancouver island. i'm not aware of any tree around here that smells like this inside. i thought, just to look at it, that it was a madrona (or arbutus, if you prefer). the color and overall formfactor seemed to suggest as much, and madronas are everywhere around here.
but now that i've gotten inside it a little i don't think it's madrona anymore. the fibers are too soft and yielding. madrona's a pretty hard wood, even when it's a little rotty. madrona also has a tendency to crack all on its own, even when it's still alive. this log is obviously been dead for a long time and is still pretty cogent.
i'm scratching my head over here trying to figure out what i've got. is the rot making it smell that way? some special fungus it's impregnated with? or some ocean-borne bacterial infection, maybe? or is it some species from someplace else that somehow found its way here on the currents or down a river?
it is a deeply weird, almost synthetic-smelling odor. i'm worried to start cutting on it indoors in case it's toxic somehow. i want a good explanation before i breathe too much of it.
all theories are welcome.
