Stan Goodman wrote:

Does anyone recognize what plant is being used for the wreaths with which
the Olympic medal winners are being crowned? It is certainly not laurel,
which is the traditional source of the branches for this purpose.

There's two villages in Greece with really old olive trees. Both insist
that theirs is the older tree, the tree in the other village is merely a
sapling, a few hundred years old.
They've stopped feuding for the duration of the games, as the Olympic
Committee decided to take branches from both trees for the most important
laurels - marathon perhaps? I forget.

They're also using branches from a dozen or so olive trees planted some
years ago for just that purpose. Interflora, possibly, dunno, they haven't
talked about that in our newspapers.

.... the feud included one village asking the other to cut their tree down
and count the rings, they'd do the same, honest, would we lie to you? The
other village declined. There's nothing like a fight that you can hand
down to your grandkids' grandkids' grandkids, really.

Henriette

--
Henriette Kress, AHG * * * * * * * * * * *Helsinki, Finland
Henriette's herbal homepage: http://www.ibiblio.org/herbmed