OLEANDER NERIUM OLEANDER - info

(taken from the book of Alfredo Cattabiani "Florario - myths, legends and symbols of plants and flowers". It is a book to buy read consult ! )

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The oleander, or the harmony of the universe.

This plant to d'annunzio inspired in the
the homonymous poem of Alcyone in a series of myths.

So he began:

Erigone, Arethusa, Berenice,
which of you accompanied the night
in the summer, with the most sweet melody
between the oleanders along the white sea?
Sedean with us women at the sea
and had each its tune
within his heart for the friend night;
and each of them seem to be happy.

And we sat on the shore, esciti
from the clear waters, with blessed blood
the fresh salt; and the oleanders ambiguous
intrecciavan the roses at the royal laurel
on our head; and the day so great
the goods we had filled with us to pay
sorridevamo of gratitude
unspeakable to her divine die.

This poem took the name the "Association of the Oleander", born in Rome in 1931 for the edition of the opera omnia of the poet, who, bearing as its motto the verse "Shines with rose the laurel of triumph," where we perceive an allusion to the oleander, also called "laurel pink", began precisely with the Alcyone.

With its long leaves sharp colour and deep green, arranged in a whorl of three, symbolizing the Harmony of the universe, composed of triads.

Moreover, the Triad, and as he watched Pythagoras, is the existence in which the Unchanging and the Changeable are joined.

In botany is called Nerium oleander, where the first term comes from the Greek nerón (water), because the oleander is often found along rivers and streams.

In the middle Ages had to be a plant, good wishes and if a legend flourished in the wake of the apocryphal Gospels wanted on the stick of Joseph, were flower oleander;47 and so was also called "Mazza di San Giuseppe".

In the vocabulary of love, a nineteenth-century flowers has been a symbol of Boldness, perhaps for the ostentation of his sensual and soft beauty that would inspire the Greeks a bond with Aphrodite.

For what reason has become, not only in Italy but even in India a tree of this burial, it is not entirely clear.

Perhaps because it was known since ancient times because of the toxicity of its berries.

"Kill the snakes" writes Pliny.

"Also, compared to u n any wild animal, the results in numbness."

Pliny also describes a honey of Pontus, reputedly poisonous, because the api suggevano those flowers.

In turn, Apuleius tells in the Metamorphoses that Lucius, transformed into donkey, while trying desperately roses that they had to give him human features, he was deceived by the similarity of the oleander with the rose, and was about to be bitten on; but as soon as he realized that it was dangerous for the donkeys, and if it went away.

Tuscany in ancient times, covered the dead with flowers of oleander: a custom so widespread in Sicily inspire the word allannarari, which means "to cover with the flowers of the oleander".