DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5542#0400
APPENDIX f.
385
that a deleterious honey is still made, particularly by the wild bees,
and that the use of it is forbidden by the government. Indeed, all
that I tasted there had a disagreeable bitter flavour.
Thus the existence of this poisonous honey seems made out; and
it only remains to consider what are the plants from which it is pro-
duced. These, according to Pliny, were the jEgoletbron and the
Rhododendron ; whilst, according to Tournefort, it was derived from
two varieties of the Chameerhododendron pontica maxima; and
Father Lambert mentions the Oleandro giallo, or yellow rose laurel.
Whatever apparent contradiction there may be here, I think there
can be little doubt that all these authorites refer to the same plants,
viz. the yellow Azalea pontica, and the purple Rhododendron. Tour-
nefort savs that it cannot be derived from the common Rhododendron,
because that plant does not flourish so far north as the Black Sea;
but when he talks of the common Rhododendron, he means the
laurier rose (rose-laurel), the Rhododaphne, or Nerium of Pliny and
modern botanists, and which is also called the Oleander.
A similar error has been committed by Father Lambert, who,
equally confounding the Oleander and the Rhododendron, says, that
the poisonous honey of Colchis is derived from the yellow Oleander;
there is no yellow oleander, and this very colour is sufficient to identify
it with the yellow Azalea, which is still abundant on the hills in the
neighbourhood of Trebizond.
The iEgolethron of Pliny is admitted by Tournefort to be the
same as his Chamserhododendron pontica maxima, mespili folio, flore
luteo; and the colour of the flower shows that the yellow Oleander
of Father Lambert is the same. Tournefort adds that the flower of
this species has a strong smell of honeysuckle, and this also serves to
identify it with the yellow Azalea pontica, which grows on all the
bills along the southern coast of the Black Sea, sometimes to the
height of ten or twelve feet. There is a singular coincidence be-
tween the name given it by Pliny, and that of the honeysuckle;
^Egolethron or goat's bane, and the Chevre-feuille or goat's leaf.
The other variety of Tournefort, C. pontica maxima, folio lauro
cerasi, flore caeruleo purpurascente, is evidently our purple Rhododen-
dron, which also abounds in the same locality, and may be identified
with the Rhododendron of Pliny, which is not what Tournefort seems
to think it has been mistaken for, viz., what he calls common Rhodo-
dendron, the laurier rose or Oleander, but a real Rhododendron, a na-
tive of this district, as it was correctly described by Pliny.
VOL. ii. 2 c
385
that a deleterious honey is still made, particularly by the wild bees,
and that the use of it is forbidden by the government. Indeed, all
that I tasted there had a disagreeable bitter flavour.
Thus the existence of this poisonous honey seems made out; and
it only remains to consider what are the plants from which it is pro-
duced. These, according to Pliny, were the jEgoletbron and the
Rhododendron ; whilst, according to Tournefort, it was derived from
two varieties of the Chameerhododendron pontica maxima; and
Father Lambert mentions the Oleandro giallo, or yellow rose laurel.
Whatever apparent contradiction there may be here, I think there
can be little doubt that all these authorites refer to the same plants,
viz. the yellow Azalea pontica, and the purple Rhododendron. Tour-
nefort savs that it cannot be derived from the common Rhododendron,
because that plant does not flourish so far north as the Black Sea;
but when he talks of the common Rhododendron, he means the
laurier rose (rose-laurel), the Rhododaphne, or Nerium of Pliny and
modern botanists, and which is also called the Oleander.
A similar error has been committed by Father Lambert, who,
equally confounding the Oleander and the Rhododendron, says, that
the poisonous honey of Colchis is derived from the yellow Oleander;
there is no yellow oleander, and this very colour is sufficient to identify
it with the yellow Azalea, which is still abundant on the hills in the
neighbourhood of Trebizond.
The iEgolethron of Pliny is admitted by Tournefort to be the
same as his Chamserhododendron pontica maxima, mespili folio, flore
luteo; and the colour of the flower shows that the yellow Oleander
of Father Lambert is the same. Tournefort adds that the flower of
this species has a strong smell of honeysuckle, and this also serves to
identify it with the yellow Azalea pontica, which grows on all the
bills along the southern coast of the Black Sea, sometimes to the
height of ten or twelve feet. There is a singular coincidence be-
tween the name given it by Pliny, and that of the honeysuckle;
^Egolethron or goat's bane, and the Chevre-feuille or goat's leaf.
The other variety of Tournefort, C. pontica maxima, folio lauro
cerasi, flore caeruleo purpurascente, is evidently our purple Rhododen-
dron, which also abounds in the same locality, and may be identified
with the Rhododendron of Pliny, which is not what Tournefort seems
to think it has been mistaken for, viz., what he calls common Rhodo-
dendron, the laurier rose or Oleander, but a real Rhododendron, a na-
tive of this district, as it was correctly described by Pliny.
VOL. ii. 2 c