The term petrichor was first coined by Australian scientists in 1964 but has been studied and described for many decades before.
So what is petrichor?
It is suggested that petrichor, the smell of nature after rain, comes about from the release of a chemical called geosmin which is aerosolised by falling rain droplets hitting the ground. Geosmin is produced by Streptomyces bacteria.
And it is interesting that such bacteria produce a chemical that smells so evocative to humans, Streptomyces are the source of chemotherapy drugs such as bleomycin; antibiotics such as streptomycin and tetracycline; and various antifungal treatments.
In fact, geosmin is one of the few chemical compounds that humans can smell with a great degree of sensitivity, much more than other compounds and indeed we are more sensitive to geosmin than many animals more renowned for their olfactory senses.
Years ago I found a sweetly-scented incense stick from a French company called 'Nature après la pluie', unfortunately they no longer make it but do still produce a room perfume by the same name.
The same chemical compound, geosmin, is found in beetroot and while humans mostly enjoy the smell of petrichor the musty-earthy taste is something different.
Mind you, I do enjoy growing and eating beetroot.
And I also enjoy photographing in the Irish countryside, here a cow grazes on coastal grasses as the petrichor-laden air gently blows across the landscape; rain moves into the distance the moistured sky bearing a rainbow and soon sunset over the Atlantic - the smells, sights and sounds of summer in Ireland.
Smells and sounds do combine with our sight to create memories that are more than just photographs. A photographer and artist typically relies on sight but enjoyable memories are made of more - the company of friends, smell of the countryside, taste of local food, sounds of wildlife and feel of the wind by the coast when photographing waves will cause a single image to stand out in the mind for years to come.
