Deepening:
The cypress and the viburnum yesterday and today
A bit of history…
The flexible branches of the
viburnum were used to tie packs and to manufacture baskets. Leaves and fruits
were employed to prepare a astringent drink, used for gargles and healing
anginas. The fruits, employed to make ink, are poisonous for humans, but some
animals eat them.
The cypress is so called
because of Cyparissus, young man loved by Apollo. According to the myth, the
young man had a deer as a present from Apollo, but he killed it with the
javelin accidentally.
For the big hurt Cyparissus
asked Apollo to cry forever: Apollo converted him in a cypress, whose resin
forms drops like tears on the trunk. Since the ancient times they were known
the balsamic features, as the Greek doctors prescribed to the lungs sicks a
holiday in Crete under the wild cypresses. The cypress has always had a ritual
meaning in worshipping deaths, characteristic that has remained still today:
for this reason is often used as masts on the way boulevards of the cimiteries.
…Today
It is possible to find viburnums in humid woods
of low valley, but sometimes is present even along water channels, in case
there were a minimal tree-covered area to the banks, essential condition for
its growth.
The cypress has a hard and resistant wood, used
in cabinet-making and to build pieces of furniture. Its wood has a very deep
aroma, useful to keep away mothes; from these twigs it is possible to extract a
oil with balsamic features (oleum cupressi).
