In a beautiful, fully illustrated package, Mythic Plants is a modern, witty take on familiar Greek myths with a focus on the wild and wonderful plants central to these stories. Think Song of Achilles meets The Secret Life of Trees.
When Prometheus stole fire from the Olympian gods and gave it to mankind, he hid it in a stalk of giant fennel. Ancient Greeks waiting to question the oracles were given cannabis as part of their cleansing rituals. A quince fruit started the Trojan war. The goddess Demeter was so distraught when Hades kidnapped her daughter that she caused winter to blanket the earth, killing all plants.
In Greek mythology, plants were used for tools, intoxication, warfare, food, medicine, magic, and rituals. Achilles used yarrow (now named after him as Achillea) to stanch the flow of blood from his soldiers’ wounds. (It still works.) Wine was long used by the gods, but there is evidence that other plants were added to wine to create the frenzy for which Dionysus’s followers were well known.
Some of those plants were real and still exist today; some of them are mythological, with powers we can only imagine. This book reveals how the ancient Greeks used plants in their lives, loves, and conquests, and also tells readers how to cultivate them today.