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grass bells	Jun. 21st, 2008 @ 10:05 am

grass bells
Originally uploaded by inatangle.

In the early morning, very early, if there's a light breeze, they must all be ringing. I wish I could hear them, but my ears don't hear in their range; I can only imagine.

Here is the grass in all its glory...

The water hemlock is blooming, my favorite, deliciously scary, poisonous plant, so pretty and looking like queen anne's lace or elder blossoms. I tried to take a picture, but it was blurry--I'll try another day.

This time I broke off a piece and sniffed it, and yes, it does smell a bit like parsley, like Mrs. Grieve says. A poisonous straw! Don't drink from it or bite it.

I feel...:

joyful

I hear...: Gary Schyman: Praan

Tags: grasses, photos, poison, summer

(26 thoughts | thoughts?)

maddening honey	May. 11th, 2008 @ 11:01 am

I'm definitely going to use this, or something based on it, in a story one day:

(From Wikipedia's entry "Rhododendron")

Some species are poisonous to grazing animals. These Rhododendrons have a toxin called grayanotoxin in their pollen and nectar. People have been known to become ill from eating honey made by bees feeding on rhododendron and azalea flowers. Xenophon described the odd behavior of Greek soldiers after having consumed honey in a village surrounded by rhododendrons. Later, it was recognized that honey resulting from these plants have a slightly hallucinogenic and laxative effect.

Traveling through the links (God bless the Internet), I come to this, from Pliny the Elder, on "Maddening Honey":

In the country of the Sanni, in the same part of Pontus, there is another kind of honey, which, from the madness it produces, has received the name of "mænomenon." This evil effect is generally attributed to the flowers of the rhododendron, with which the woods there abound; and that people, though it pays a tribute to the Romans in wax, derives no profit whatever from its honey, in consequence of these dangerous properties ... What can we suppose to have possibly been the intention of Nature in thus laying these traps in our way, giving us honey that is poisonous in some years and good in others, poisonous in some parts of the combs and not in others, and that, too, the produce in all cases of the self-same bees? It was not enough, forsooth, to have produced a substance in which poison might be administered without the slightest difficulty, but must she herself administer it as well in the honey, to fall in the way of so many animated beings?

I feel...:

enthralled

I hear...: Old Blind Dogs: Twa Corbies

Tags: internet goodness, poison, stories, wild foods, writing

(33 thoughts | thoughts?)

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