Coumarins

The scent of fresh-cut hay, source of both a beloved perfume note and the blockbuster blood thinner.

Core Principles & Analysis

• Sweet clover and tonka beans owe their warm hay fragrance to coumarin.
• Spoiled sweet-clover feed bled cattle in the 1920s; the culprit, dicoumarol, led directly to warfarin.
• Many foods contain traces, but regulators cap added coumarin for its liver toxicity at high doses.

Specifications & Metrics

• CHEMICAL CLASS: Benzopyranones