I have Otome-no-ka....
It is on the Don Rawson Fragrant Flowered Hosta List, but the name Kifukurin Otome is not on there.

I checked Kifukurin Otome in the HLibrary. It is there. Then I went to MYHOSTAS.BE and found it there too. This is at the bottom in the description field:

" =venusta 'Kifukurin Otome'.
=venusta 'Aureomarginata'. "

So it appears to be a venusta
No mention of any additional information.
It is a beautiful little thing, isn't it?
Nothing says that your ability to detect a fragrance is limited to plants officially recognized as "scented." If they can mutate with leaves, why not with other parts of the plant too?

What a sweet looking set of blooms it has, Jo. You are a lucky lady. Perhaps it has tried to let folks know it has this feature, and you're the first one able to detect it. How nice.

On the other hand, my Otome-no-ka is not in the Hosta Library. I'll have to track it down and see why it is on the list.

Didn't we chat about this hosta once before, and you found fragrance then? Well, I'll try this time to read about the species hosta by Schmid at the HLibrary.

While trying to find information on this, I ran across a piece on the Plant Delights Nursery (PDN) by Tony Avent, about selecting hosta for warm climates, by choosing those descended from hosta with lower dormancy requirements. They evolved in warmer climates, so will prosper in our zone 9-10 better. I won't discuss this here, but I will start a new thread with it.

The reason I came back is, it said that your hosta evolved without knowing exactly its background. So. It could have a cross somewhere with a plantaginea, or crossed with something which had plantaginea in it. Just thought I'd throw that in the pot and see what cooks up.

Below is the link to the Tony Avent information.

Here is a link that might be useful: Hosta for Warm Climates (PDN-Tony Avent)

Hi Mocc! Thanks for the info and link..I checked it out. I did a little more digging weeks ago and found what you did too, reference to "unknown". :-(
bTW...continue to discuss anything here if you like as I doubt there will be much activity on KO, although your own thread will get more bites due to its content.

I posted because the scent was there again...what was interesting was the similar weather conditions...same as when I first detected it. It leads me to conclude that... Theresa Ann's research, your observations, Idiothe's tutorial etc. etc. on the subject was pretty much bang on.

I just wanted to " journalize" it, sort of. I'm just getting into this exciting fragrant aspect of the life of hosta...much to learn, much to observe.

Thanks for dropping in, Mocc.

P.S. I remember "no woman, no cry" when we previously discussed...good laugh.. It sure would be nice though if someone else would have Kifukurin Otome.

the only Otome i could find here ;-) never smelled it but I'll try to remember to try next year

If it's a form of H. venusta, it has no fragrance. I bought two pots of venusta this year, one containing a sport with hairline white edge (not yellow as Kifukurin Otome), the other with lighter centers but different from Ki Nakafu Otome, which I also have. It's pretty easy to collect a bunch of venusta forms, as they don't take up much room!

Pieter, if you found this old thread, then perhaps the "Rhizomatous" discussion is lurking somewhere too...I will try...

DTeager, I used to go around and sniff out the flowers (haven't done that lately) and discovered scent (like a one-off) on a S&S for example. It was unusual to say the least and I haven't run across that since.

So, I took a look and I had a whiff. It gets complicated here, the variegated divisions I took late April have all gone solid, and no, there is not a hint of fragrance. I did notice on one division there are a couple of leaves with white stripes near the center but all the edge variegation is gone.....very strange....

Pieter

I have had KO since 2011, purchased from Keith who used to run a home Hosta nursery in Paris, Ont.so these hostas are special to me. I wouldn’t be able to replace them.

Pieter, how long after you discovered them did you remove the variegated seedlings from your venusta? It is discoveries such as yours that encourage us to look for anomalies in our own gardens... spend a few extra moments while observing and maintaining our plants. :-)