Question about "white florals"

I would include Osmanthus.

I have a big bag of dried Taiwanese osmanthus I add to oolong tea... wonderful stuff.

Yes kess, those flowers you listed are what most of us mean, when we speak about white florals.

I think I personally use the term to describe indolic florals - not necessarily a flower that is white in color.

I would think lemon tree blossoms might also be added to this category, does anyone disagree?

I would include lily also.

Iris?

I don't think so.

Iris has such a different quality to it than those others mentioned above.

Aren't Iris scents are usually based on the scent of the dried and aged rhisome and not the flower? .

I was looking in wikipedia for the term "indole" and I found some interesting information:

"Indole is an aromatic heterocyclic organic compound (...) Indole is a solid at room temperature. Indole can be produced by bacteria as a degradation product of the amino acid tryptophan. It occurs naturally in human feces and has an intense fecal odor. At very low concentrations, however, it has a flowery smell, and is a constituent of many flower scents (such as orange blossoms) and perfumes. It also occurs in coal tar.

(...) Natural jasmine oil, used in the perfume industry, contains around 2.5% of indole. Since 1 kilogram of the natural oil requires processing several million jasmine blossoms and costs around $10,000, indole (among other things) is used in the manufacture of synthetic jasmine oil (which costs around $10/kg)."

Yes, orange blossoms, gardenias, and tuberose are also indolic flowers and depending on the concentration, can lend voluptuous and sultry notes to a perfume.

But what about champaca flower, neroli, magnolia, ylang ylang or lotus?

I found some answers here too:
http://www.thegoodscentscompany.com/data/rw1006511.html
See on the right the column "Natural occurrence in" :
bergamot oil @ 0.000-0.009%
dried bonito
butter
champaca absolute @ 2.90%
champaca concrete @ 4.00%
roasted coffee
couroupita guianensis aubl. flower oil brazil @ 0.20%
egg
fish
jasmin
jasmin absolute concrete egypt @ 3.84%
jasmin absolute concrete india @ 1.07-1.85%
jasmin absolute concrete italy @ 1.39%
jasmin oil italy @ 4.21%
jonquil
lecythis usitata miers. var. paraensis (ducke) r. kunth. flower oil brazil @ 0.40%
malt
mikan peel oil @ trace%
narcissus absolute @ 1.51%
narcissus absolute @ 6.30%
neroli
neroli oil CO2 extract @ 0.45%
olive oil
orangeflower absolute morocco @ 2.6-9.9%
orangeflower water absolute @ 0.0-3.2%
petitgrain combava oil @ trace%
robinia pseudacacia
rum
tea
thyme oil wild or creeping france @ 0.09%
burley tobacco
wallflower
wine
ylang ylang oil CO2 extract @ 0.13%

Thanks Mike & Surreallity - Iris an interesting one for me . . . still getting my head around it. Reason I asked is because I have Bois d'Hiris (TDC) and these is a quality there that I also get from Carnal Flower . . . maybe it's the raw non-perfumey 'dampness' or something, but fascinating - I'm new to florals altogether, frankly.

Great list senZuality! Narcissus hadn't occurred to me, but I think I get that. Unfortunately, they are long finished blooming for the year here, but I hope to remember to check them for an indolic quality when they come back up at the end of next winter.

Iris scent is from the rhizome, and it could be from the old method of expression or a more recent method of infusion (thus explaining the glut of new iris perfumes in 2008).

The scent from the rhizome (orris root) is really very different from the scent of iris flowers though, isn't it?