oi FA3IILIAE GARDEN FLOirEES. 



desci-ibed by Sir Alexander Grant in the volume on 

 Xenophon^ contributed to Blackwood's "Ancient Classics" 

 — " It consisted in their finding a quantity of bee-hives, 

 from which they ate the honey abundantly. But the 

 honey was of a kind common to this day in Asia Minor, 

 made from a species of rhododendron, or from the common 

 rose laurel [Nerium oleander), and having intoxicating and 

 poisonous qualities. From the effects of this honey large 

 numbers of the soldiers fell stupefied or maddened to 

 the ground, and for two or three days they wore Iwrx de 

 combat, but at the end of that time all recovered." 



Remarking on this occurrence, the author of the essay 

 on the " Honey Bee," reprinted from the Qnaiierl/j 

 Iiccicic, says : — " The soldiers suffered in i)roportion to 

 the quantity they had eaten : some seemed drunken, some 

 mad, and some all but died. This quality in the honey 

 has been referred bj^ Pliny and others to the poisonous 

 nature of the rhododendron which abounds in those parts; 

 but from inquiries which we have made at Dropmore, and 

 other spots abounding with this shrub, we cannot learn 

 that any difference is perceived in the honey of those 

 districts, or, indeed, that the common bee is ever seen to 

 settle on its flowers. If the Kalmia latifolia be a native 

 of Pontus, the danger is more likely to have arisen from 

 that source, the honey derived from which has been kno\vu 

 to prove fatal in several instances in America.'"' 



It is pretty generally agreed, both by scholars and 

 naturalists, that the plant from Avliich the poisonous honey 

 was derived was the one now before us, the Pontic azalea ; 

 but Sir A. Grant's suggestion of the oleander is reason- 

 able, while the suggestion of the Kdliiikt, in the second of 

 the above quotations, is unreasonable, because the plant is 



