Dispelling Miasma. Myrica gale, Sweetgale or Bog Myrtle, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
George Crabbe (1754-1832), undeservedly forgotten - except perhaps by Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes -, poet, surgeon, clergyman and entomologist, in his The Birth of Flattery pens these lines:
'Gale from the bog shall yield Arabian balm,
And the grey willow wave a golden Palm.'
Such a pretty evocation of marshy Spring!
Indeed, the miasmas from swamps can be horrible, and Sweetgale, Myrica gale, dispells them by its heady aromas especially when it blossoms in Early Spring. The finely flavored air is dispelled from the small yellow resinous spots that you'll be able to see on the bark and the flower petals themselves (in this case male flowers).
If you look up Sweetgale in a compendium of some sort you will find that it once had many uses which have fallen on modern times.
Incidentally, the word 'gale' as in its scientific name is not from classical Latin but a Neolatin coinage taken ultimately from the word 'Gagel' used for this shrub in older forms of German, Dutch and English.
Dispelling Miasma. Myrica gale, Sweetgale or Bog Myrtle, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
George Crabbe (1754-1832), undeservedly forgotten - except perhaps by Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes -, poet, surgeon, clergyman and entomologist, in his The Birth of Flattery pens these lines:
'Gale from the bog shall yield Arabian balm,
And the grey willow wave a golden Palm.'
Such a pretty evocation of marshy Spring!
Indeed, the miasmas from swamps can be horrible, and Sweetgale, Myrica gale, dispells them by its heady aromas especially when it blossoms in Early Spring. The finely flavored air is dispelled from the small yellow resinous spots that you'll be able to see on the bark and the flower petals themselves (in this case male flowers).
If you look up Sweetgale in a compendium of some sort you will find that it once had many uses which have fallen on modern times.
Incidentally, the word 'gale' as in its scientific name is not from classical Latin but a Neolatin coinage taken ultimately from the word 'Gagel' used for this shrub in older forms of German, Dutch and English.