drowning in memories

Canon EOS 6D - f/2.8 - 1/80sec - 100 mm - ISO 4000

 

- lnɟᴉʇnɐǝq scenery reflections in the pond during twilight

- the long flower stems are Eutrochium maculatum (formerly: Eupatorium maculatum) = Joe-Pye weed = leverkruid

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- A very interesting and 'funny' story, borrowed from:

7song.com/blog/2012/01/the-eupatorium-story-joe-pye-weed-...

 

- A note on the word Eupatorium.

It comes from King Mithridates VI of Pontus, also known as Eupator Dionysius. He lived circa 120-63 BC and has a very colorful history.

 

The reason he is brought up here is that he fits into the herbal world through a concoction (little used today) called Mithridate, which is a poison antidote.

 

Here is a bit of his story. His father was also a king who was killed by poison (a popular method then), and so as he ascended the throne he naturally worried about a similar fate.

He tried to tilt the odds in his favor by continually taking very small amounts of a number of poisons. And it was also rumored that he had a special concoction that was a mixture of many substances that he drank to become resistant to being poisoned. There is much speculation on what these substances were, and you can see competing accounts of the ingredients if you look it up.

 

Here’s where it gets interesting (dare I say, ironic). Mithridates was a territory-expanding type of King, continually stepping on the toes of his Roman neighbors. When the Romans were sure to defeat Mithridates, instead of being captured he chose to kill himself, by poison.

Unfortunately (get your ironic hats on) he was not able to kill himself as he was inured by all the years of taking sub-lethal doses of these poisons. (Not true for his family, who also took the poison before capture, they all died).

So instead, he asked a guard to stab him to death with his sword. Not the cleanest way to die, but it worked well enough.

 

And so, for many years afterwards, his special Mithridate formula was sought by those in similar circumstances (meaning, fear of being poisoned). Another variation of this drink (Galen wrote a book about it) is called theriac. Which lead later to the English word treacle.

 

It is hard to know how much of this tale, or formula are true, but it is well published, including accounts written around the time of his death.

 

I am not sure why this genus of these plants is named after him, but there are some poisonous Eupatoriums, such as White snakeroot (Eupatorium rugosum aka Ageratina altissima), so perhaps there was a poisonous species in his formula?

And so, Mithridate lends his name to a couple of plants.

 

 

Done