Readers began contacting the newspaper about an unusual smell around town.

"Like sour vinegar," wrote Steve Hutton.

"Almost like french fries," postal worker Paul Urban said.

The smell was present day and night, reportedly near the James Taylor Bridge but in other parts of town, too.

We called the Fire Department, the Public Works Department, Town Hall and the university. No one had a clue.

Former Chapel Hill Mayor Rosemary Waldorf suggested the smell could be town buses burning biodiesel. The fuel exhaust has been compared to french fries.

But if it was biodiesel, it wasn't Chapel Hill Transit. Don Wells, the facility manager at Chapel Hill Transit, said the fleet was not using biodiesel.

Then journalism student Lauren Enney smelled something this week.

"My roommate and I noticed this the other day on our way back from class," she said. "We think the source might be a certain type of tree that has white blooms. It gives off a really nasty fishy smell. They line Columbia Street."

A day later, Enney wrote back.

"I swear it's the smelly trees. ... They're horrid."

So was it, and is it, the trees?

Sally Heiney thinks so, maybe even two species.

"I tell you what, it's those Bradford pears," said Heiney, a horticulturalist at the N.C. Botanical Garden.

"The Bradford pears do stink, they're insidious and we wish they were all gone," she said.

Chapel Hill planted a lot of Bradford pears, an exotic species with early white blooms, only to later learn how fragile they are. They split during ice storms, and they're invasive. Heiney saw some deep in a forest on a recent plane ride.

The pears bloomed weeks ago, but there is another nasty odor that local flora are putting out about now.

Viburnum rafinesquianum, aka downy arrowwood, is a native shrub with white flowers that can grow 6 feet.

"They have an odor," Heiney said. "You'll look around and ask, 'Is something dead?'"


A nose turn-off
We asked readers on the OrangeChat blog to e-mail us about what they thought was causing Chapel Hill's smell. Here are some of the responses."


I suspect the offensive odor troubling Chapel Hill is from the common red-tipped photenia. We planted five of these about 30 years ago. Now, at a height of over 20 feet, they have exploded with large white flowerheads in the spring that produce a very unpleasant odor. This flowering did not occur until they were about 25 years old. The "stink" subsides within a few weeks. -- -- Joy Boyette"


Yep, I think the cause of the foul odor is Chapel Hill is definitely from Bradford Pears. The theory on my block, among the older, wiser neighbors, is that the bloom on the Bradford Pear is the primary restroom for bees in the spring. Why? They don't know. But it is a nice, white, clean and spacious place if you're a bee. Even though there's not much to read in those blooms, I guess it's still acceptable. -- -- Joe Coon