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On a recent Saturday, Lee Trott and I drove Route 647, Crest Hill Road, from Marshall to Flint Hill. Full of turns, twists, descents, and climbs, this 17 mile road is one of the glories of the Virginia Piedmont; I never tire of it winter or summer, spring or autumn. My recent drive revealed a special splendor: mountain laurel in full, pale pink bloom. This shrub, sometimes a tree, is an intriguing Combination of paradoxes and ecological magic.
Who would guess on seeing the umbrella-like clusters of pink flowers that honey — bee-made from laurel nectar — is so poisonous that it has proved a killer to some who have eaten it. This honey is said to have a nauseating odor and pungent taste that causes a burning sensation in the back of the throat. So why eat it in the first place? Is it that we always assume honey to be a wholesome gift from nature?
Animals, usually young sheep, foolish enough to browse on the deep green leaves of this plant, rarely survive. Yet deer commonly nibble at the leaves and suffer no ill effects.
Impenetrable laurel thickets, so dense they cut out the light, have traditionally made hiding places for illegal whiskey stills. I have heard tales from the mountains of North Carolina of death for some who drank whiskey — white lightning — when laurel leaves have fallen into open vats.
The beautiful black-throated blue warbler — splendor in miniature — prefers the mountain laurel in which to hide its nest. I am acquainted with the gloom and density of laurel thickets for I have made my way through them in search of the tiny cup of a nest of this bird. I never was successful. Instead, I gained familiarity with and Tespect for laurel.
Kalmia latifolia is not only always a shrub. In “Trees of the Southeastern States” (University of North Carolina Press, 1945) I just read of a laurel in North Carolina Mountains that had a trunk 10 2/3 inches in diameter! It
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