I first noticed it yesterday midday on the way home laden with shopping bags. It was wafting out of the woods, a sweet, heady and tantalising scent.

Early this morning I set off through the woods in search of its origin but it’s gone. For nectar production time of day is everything.

I’m reminded of a dawn to dusk study I contributed to years ago at Chelsea Physic garden.  The findings showed that nectar production for the study plant, wild fuschia, varied hugely throughout the day with a peak at midday. And studies on nectar production of native plants find links between timing patterns of nectar production and the habits of visiting insect pollinators.

Feeling like a perfumier, I console myself by seeking out other appealing scents in the woods. Young beech leaves have an acrid smell when crushed whereas the hornbeam leaves are sweeter and leave my fingers gooey with sap. Horse chestnut leaves smell light and grassy, while new oak leaflets have a woody base note.

Lying next to a patch of newly open bluebells, I bury my face in the flowers to find a delicate fragrance. That and the mid blue colouring suggest they might be a hybrid of the English deep blue scented and Spanish pale blue unscented varieties.

Unwilling to accept defeat I return at midday and now the mystery honeyed scent is back. But I still can’t for the life of me work out where it’s coming from.