A snow day & a deadly plant

February 2010
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The snow has come as promised! Joel’s work has already closed for tomorrow & I’ll be taking the day off work [since everyone else probably will], which means SNOW DAY!! So exciting!

Today at work I came across the oldest plant I’ve seen so far, from 1870:

According to the annotation tag, it’s hyoscyamus niger & was collected in nearby, in Detroit. Not familiar with the plant, I looked it up & this is what I learned [& it's really interesting!!]:

Henbane (Hyoscyamus niger), also known as stinking nightshade, is a plant of the family Solanaceae that originated in Eurasia, though it is now globally distributed.

It was historically used in combination with other plants, such as mandrake, deadly nightshade, and datura as an anaesthetic potion, as well as for its psychoactive properties in “magic brews.” These psychoactive properties include visual hallucinations and a sensation of flight.

It was sometimes one of the ingredients in grut, traditionally used in beers as a flavouring, until replaced by hops in the 11th to 16th centuries.

Henbane is thought to have been the “hebenon” poured into the ear of Hamlet’s father.

I’m also working on another project at work where I’m putting bryophyte specimens [non-vascular plants, like moss] from Greenland into new packets & gluing the labels onto the front. These specimens were collected in the 1950s.

Plans are settled for the ASB/conference conflict – I’ll work at half day at the National Library of Medicine on Friday, fly out of Washington National at 4pm, land in Indy at 6pm & drive to Bloomington where we’ll spend the night & I’ll present the next day. I bought the plane ticket & booked the hotel room & it feels great to have those crossed off my list.

Lately, my thoughts frequently drift to the fertile crescent & this beautiful library.
It’s only about 4 months away, Insha’Allah…