我的2宝贝 - 赏心悦目,不亦乐乎...乐谱悦章!: August 2009

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Daphne

There are many species of Daphne in the flowering plant family. Daphne odora (Winter daphne) is an evergreen shrub, grown for its incredibly fragrant, fleshy, pale-pink, tubular flowers, each with 4 spreading lobes and for its glossy foliage. The plant is native to China and Japan. The plant is fully frost hardy. It requires full sun to part shade. It is found in fertile, slightly acid, peaty, well-drained soils. It will not tolerate transplantation as, like all Daphne, it hates root disturbance. It rarely fruits, but when it does, it produces red berries after flowering in habitat.

Apollo and Daphne

Apollo and Daphne is a story from ancient Greek mythology: In Greek mythology, Peneus was a river god, one of the three-thousand Rivers. One of his daughters name Daphne, Eros, the Greek God of Love, shot Apollo, (the Greek God of the sun & music) with one of his arrows, causing him to fall in love with Peneus' daughter Daphne. It was Eros's plan that Daphne would scorn Apollo because Eros was angry that Apollo had made fun of his archery skills. Eros also claimed to be irritated by Apollo's singing. The petulant Eros took two arrows, one of gold and one of lead. With the leaden shaft, to incite hatred, he shot the nymph Daphne and with the golden one, to incite love, he shot Apollo through the heart. Apollo was seized with love for the maiden, and she in turn abhorred Apollo. Apollo continually followed her, begging her to stay, but the nymph continued her flight. They were evenly matched in the race until Eros intervened and helped him gain upon Daphne. Seeing that Apollo was bound to catch her, she called upon her father, "Help me, Peneus!(river god-Daphne's father) Open the earth to enclose me, or change my form, which has brought me into this danger!" Suddenly her skin turned into bark, her hair became leaves, and her arms were transformed into branches. She stopped running as her feet became rooted to the ground. Apollo embraced the branches, but even the branches shrank away from him. Since Apollo could no longer take her as his wife, he vowed to tend her as his tree, and used his powers of eternal youth to render her ever green. Since then the leaves of the Bay laurel tree have never known decay.