This climbing plant was sacred to Dionysus, the god of wine and of drunken festivities. Here, you’ll notice ivy growing up the trunk of some trees and over the ground. Ivy ( Hedera helix)įrom the mulberry tree, take the second turn on the left and walk until you find the bench on the side of the path. Last year, more than a thousand mulberry trees throughout Athens were infested by Xylotrechus chinensis, an invasive wood-boring insect, and many of those trees were lost. Be sure to show this tree some extra love when you visit. Although the fruits of these trees are edible, given the garden’s urban location, their consumption cannot be recommended. Now a symbol of the bittersweet nature of love, both white and black mulberry ( Morus nigra) trees can be found in the National Garden. Their blood stains the white mulberries dark red. The tree was featured in Ovid’s poem Metamorphoses Pyramus and Thisbe are secret lovers, and when Pyramus believes Thisbe to be dead, he kills himself in grief, whereupon she discovers his body and commits suicide as well. The leaves were used in poultices for burns and a decoction of the outer bark was made to relieve toothaches, kill worms, and as an antidote to the poison in aconite ( Aconitum spp.). The physician and herbalist Dioscorides (40-90 CE) wrote in his five-volume text De Materia Medica that the mulberry fruit was helpful for digestive inflammation and could be boiled and mixed with honey to heal inflamed tonsils. The mulberry tree was a common sight in ancient Greece and its fruit, leaves, and bark were all used for a variety of medicinal purposes. While most tourists in Athens seek out ancient marble ruins, whose stories remain locked in time, the historic plants in this garden and throughout the city are as alive and as useful as ever.Įntering from the main entrance through Leoforos Amalias, walk to the left of the central sundial and you’ll find a young mulberry tree that bears its fruit, white mulberries, during the summer. This 38-acre treasure was commissioned in 1838 by Queen Amalia, whose name was eventually bestowed on the street now known as Leoforos Amalias, or Amalia Avenue, where the main entrance of the garden is located. Located next to the Parliament building in Syntagma Square, the National Garden, boasting both archaeological remains and tree-shaded areas perfect for picnics, has been an urban oasis for visitors since 1920, when the garden was first opened to the public. By exploring their celebrated past, we can keep these tales alive and honor the roles they played in the lives of the ancients.įortunately, there’s no reason to leave Athens in search of these timeless plants. Today, the healing power of these plants remains unchanged, but knowledge of their properties and of the stories linked to them are fading from our collective memory. Many of these same plants were used in herbal treatments and in sacred rituals, as well as in the daily cuisine of the ancients, and surviving texts written by philosophers and physicians of that era stress the central role of plants in both spiritual and medical matters.
CYPRESS TREE HADES SYMBOL FULL
With more than 5,500 plant species, of which approximately 760 are endemic, the country is full of herbs, flowers, shrubs and trees associated with certain ancient gods and goddesses and with episodes in their lives. Among Greece’s many natural wonders is its biodiversity.
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