[ High School and Self-Education Board ]
Posted by Janet in WA on 9:08 Jul 16
In Reply to: Grammar Question..... posted by Catherine in WI
"Smelling" is *part* of the participial phrase, so it can't link the phrase it's part of to anything else in the sentence.
I don't know where this sentence was found, but it's very awkward. It's not one you'd encounter in good writing outside of a textbook with canned sentences for marking/diagraming.