World Sensorium at the Missouri Botanical Garden’s

Smelling the Bouquet: Plants and Scents in the Garden

Curated by Nezka Pfeifer

The Missouri Botanical Garden’s Stephen and Peter Sachs Museum presents Smelling the Bouquet: Plants and Scents in the Garden, an immersive exhibition exploring the botanical, cultural, and artistic significance of plant-derived scents. The exhibition invites visitors to engage their senses and uncover the powerful role that botanical scent has played throughout history.

A highlight of the exhibition is the inclusion of World Sensorium, an olfactory artwork by interdisciplinary artist Gayil Nalls, featured in the museum’s South Gallery. This groundbreaking work explores the aromatic heritage of global cultures, presenting scent as a unifying force that shapes human identity and connection. Visitors are invited to experience World Sensorium 2025 as a neuroaesthetic phenomenon and a tangible yet ephemeral cultural bridge, offering a unique perspective on how olfactory experiences influence our understanding of the world.

Central to this exhibition is World Sensorium 2025, an olfactory sculpture encapsulating the planet’s aromatic heritage. Its formulation is based on projected population percentages for 2025. World Sensorium at the Missouri Botanical Garden (MOBOT) provides visitors with an immersive opportunity to engage with this global social olfactory sculpture and explore its flora—plants of profound cultural and ecological significance from around the world.

Within the World Sensorium exhibition in the South Gallery, a strategically placed QR code provides access to a detailed chart featuring:

Countries and their associated plants
Common and botanical names of the plants
World Sensorium Country Pages
Exact locations within MOBOT’s Living Collection and Herbarium
MOBOT’s Plant Finder for in-depth information on most plants

This resource enhances visitors’ understanding of World Sensorium, offering a unique opportunity to experience these plants as both living organisms and historical artifacts.

The exhibition allows visitors to explore World Sensorium plants in both MOBOT’s Living Collection and Herbarium. Most of these plants are preserved in the MOBOT Herbarium as pressed and dried specimens, providing insights into their taxonomy, evolution, and conservation. The “Plant Finder” links offer comprehensive overviews of each plant’s characteristics, cultivation, and uses, along with their Herbarium and Living Collection locations.

Of the approximately 137 unique plants in World Sensorium, 76 countries, and 33 plant species are part of the Living Collection at the Missouri Botanical Garden.

Note: The “Smelling the Bouquet: Plants and Scents in the Garden” exhibition is scheduled to run from May 2, 2025, to March 31, 2026, at the Stephen and Peter Sachs Museum within the Missouri Botanical Garden.

For more information on the World Sensorium Project and related events, please visit the World Sensorium Conservancy Events Page.