It fills the air like an unseen presence.
It envelopes you and causes you to take in a deep breath.


It is only when the wind brushes across the small, white blossoms that the air becomes heavy with a heavenly fragrance that makes you pause and wonder...
 where is that marvelous scent coming from.


I spoke with my friend – who is very knowledgeable about plants- to ask her what was blooming and causing such a wondrous frangrance.


She told me it is the Tea Olive. I discovered that the source of the powerful scent was coming from  my neighbor’s garden. She has a very large Tea Olive bush. I walked over to discover clusters of small creamy-white blossoms. 


My friend told me that this shrub will
bloom at different times throughout the year. In the spring the lovely scent attracts the bees, but in the fall, mysteriously it doesn’t.


The blossoms are fading and falling, but the memory of the scent of the Tea Olive will remain with me for some time to come.