No Medicine for Death. Asclepias angustifolia, Mexican Milkweed, and Honeybee, Apis mellifera, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
No Sweet Honey - great medicine for many a sickness - can undo Death.
In April 1822, the Nürnberger Friedens- und Kriegs-Kurier printed a dispatch they'd received from Sicily, Italy. It told of the trial of one Michel Angels Alessi, a guide to foreigners on that island. About a year earlier, he'd been employed by the German botanist August Friedrich Schweigger (1783-1821), professor of botany at the university of Königsberg. Schweigger had just been rector of his university and was unwinding from that administration by undertaking some botanical collection in Italy. Fascinated by the variety of the natural kingdom there he'd exclaimed that the locals had no idea of the treasures right under their noses. Presumably they didn't get his metaphors, and thought he was talking of actual riches. He was regarded a magician, an adventurer, and as moneyed. Poor Alessi decided to murder him. On June 28, 1821, as Schweigger was bending down over a spring in the mountains to slake his thirst, Alessi hit him in the back of his head, killed him, and made off with his possessions. Apprehended five days later he was remanded to justice and in April of 1822 was sentenced to death. Aesculapius, the Greek God of medicine, was of no use to either men...
The Mexican Milkweed of this photo is labeled in the Hortus as Asclepias linifolia Lag. ex Spreng. (1824/5) but it's a synonym for Asceplias angustifolia Schweigg., Arizona Milkweed or Mexican Milkweed, described by Schweigger in 1812. Arizona was then still part of Mexico. I rather prefer the specific name 'angustifolia' - narrow-leaved - because it is so straightforward; 'linifolia' - flax-leaved - asks for the knowledge of what flax-leaves look like; yes, they're narrow, but why not say so in the first place...?
No Medicine for Death. Asclepias angustifolia, Mexican Milkweed, and Honeybee, Apis mellifera, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
No Sweet Honey - great medicine for many a sickness - can undo Death.
In April 1822, the Nürnberger Friedens- und Kriegs-Kurier printed a dispatch they'd received from Sicily, Italy. It told of the trial of one Michel Angels Alessi, a guide to foreigners on that island. About a year earlier, he'd been employed by the German botanist August Friedrich Schweigger (1783-1821), professor of botany at the university of Königsberg. Schweigger had just been rector of his university and was unwinding from that administration by undertaking some botanical collection in Italy. Fascinated by the variety of the natural kingdom there he'd exclaimed that the locals had no idea of the treasures right under their noses. Presumably they didn't get his metaphors, and thought he was talking of actual riches. He was regarded a magician, an adventurer, and as moneyed. Poor Alessi decided to murder him. On June 28, 1821, as Schweigger was bending down over a spring in the mountains to slake his thirst, Alessi hit him in the back of his head, killed him, and made off with his possessions. Apprehended five days later he was remanded to justice and in April of 1822 was sentenced to death. Aesculapius, the Greek God of medicine, was of no use to either men...
The Mexican Milkweed of this photo is labeled in the Hortus as Asclepias linifolia Lag. ex Spreng. (1824/5) but it's a synonym for Asceplias angustifolia Schweigg., Arizona Milkweed or Mexican Milkweed, described by Schweigger in 1812. Arizona was then still part of Mexico. I rather prefer the specific name 'angustifolia' - narrow-leaved - because it is so straightforward; 'linifolia' - flax-leaved - asks for the knowledge of what flax-leaves look like; yes, they're narrow, but why not say so in the first place...?