Heaven scent: Why the sweet pea is Britain's favourite fragrant flower

Now the sweet pea, whose Latin name lathyrus odoratus means "delicate pleasures", has been rated Britain's best scented summer flower.

Experts from Gardening Which? magazine compared the fragrances and blooms of 40 different scented annual plants and came up with the country's top ten.

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Fragrantissma, a popular variety of sweet pea, was the clear winner for its ability to fill the garden with fragrance and stay in bloom throughout the summer.

In second place was the angel's trumpet (Latin name Datura), a plant which releases its scent as the sun goes down.

Bird's eyes (Gilia tricolor) – a plant with small white flowers and a scent similar to that of oriental lilies – came third.

Also in the top ten was the cherry pie (heliotrope), a purple flowering plant which, as its name suggests, smelled "truly scrumptious" and was "enough to make your mouth water," the experts said.

Other traditional favourites in the leading group were the lupin, evening primrose, mignonette and petunia, along with two varieties of the tobacco plant, which also releases its scent towards twilight.

Jeffrey Brande, of the National Sweet Pea Society, said he was not surprised his favourite flower had won.

"I've been growing sweet peas since 1969 and was attracted to them precisely because of their fragrance," he said.

"They are very easy to grow and fill your garden with a beautiful smell.

"Although they do not last very long in vases, you can go out and cut them and cut them and they will still come back.

"The more you cut, the more you get."

Sweet peas arrived in Britain when a Sicilian monk sent seeds to a Middlesex schoolmaster to cultivate.

Their name comes from the Greek lathyros, for pea, and the Latin word for fragrant – odoratus.

The wide spread of colours is largely due to 19th century gardener Henry Eckford, who was known as the "father of the sweet pea" for his success in improving colour and flower size.

Ceri Thomas, editor of Gardening Which?, said: "Just because a plant is scented, it doesn't mean it actually smells pleasant, or that you can detect it without having to bury your face in the flower.

"The sweet pea, however, can fill the garden with fragrance, as well as being extremely easy to grow."