The distinguishing characteristics of parks are generally their ornamental layout, enclosure in a town or attachment to a country house, as well as their use for public or private recreation. It might seem pedantic to point out such semantic niceties but language used often implies an individual’s intentions or betrays their perceptions. In this case, the Barans’ choice of title assumes particular significance when one considers the fact that the word ‘forest’ is cognate with ‘foreign’ since they are both derived from foris, the Latin for ‘out of doors’. The presence of a foreign body in parkland inspired the series and perhaps is the reason for the transformation of the actual park into the imagined forest of its title.
The Barans live in the proximity of Richmond Park, the largest of London’s Royal Parks, and have been visiting it for many years. Toxic Forest stemmed from their interest in and subsequent familiarity with a species of rhododendron that they encountered while walking in the park’s plantations. The Rhododendron ponticum is a tall shrub native to South-East Europe and Western Asia that was introduced to Britain in the nineteenth century by explorers carrying home exotic plants with which to enliven the English country garden. A shrub that grows well in the shade and on almost any type of soil – quickly producing a verdant screen suitable for game cover and clusters of pretty flowers in the spring – it easily beguiled these plant collectors. Having been the darling of ornamental planting in the Victorian era, it eventually took its captor captive and earned the reputation for being the gardeners’ best friend but foresters’ worst enemy.
Today the Rhododendron ponticum is considered by many to be a weed, the attributes for which it was originally prized having proved noxious to British flora and fauna. Its capacity to adapt to most soil conditions, aided by its ability to regenerate both vegetatively and by seed dispersal, has enabled it to spread from country estates and invade large areas of the British countryside. The cover provided by its dense canopy literally puts native plants in the shade, inhibiting their growth. Once shed, its leaves, which are also toxic and unpalatable to herbivores, create an acidic mulch that increases the inhospitableness of the ground for competing plants. The nectar from its flowers produces a honey that, if ingested by humans, causes ‘Mad Honey Disease’. Fortunately for Zafer’s father, whom curiosity once dared to taste the plant’s sweet poison, the intoxication tends to last for less than twenty-four hours, inducing symptoms such as vomiting, excessive perspiration, dizziness, shock and low blood pressure – but rarely fatalities.
The Barans live in the proximity of Richmond Park, the largest of London’s Royal Parks, and have been visiting it for many years. Toxic Forest stemmed from their interest in and subsequent familiarity with a species of rhododendron that they encountered while walking in the park’s plantations. The Rhododendron ponticum is a tall shrub native to South-East Europe and Western Asia that was introduced to Britain in the nineteenth century by explorers carrying home exotic plants with which to enliven the English country garden. A shrub that grows well in the shade and on almost any type of soil – quickly producing a verdant screen suitable for game cover and clusters of pretty flowers in the spring – it easily beguiled these plant collectors. Having been the darling of ornamental planting in the Victorian era, it eventually took its captor captive and earned the reputation for being the gardeners’ best friend but foresters’ worst enemy.
Today the Rhododendron ponticum is considered by many to be a weed, the attributes for which it was originally prized having proved noxious to British flora and fauna. Its capacity to adapt to most soil conditions, aided by its ability to regenerate both vegetatively and by seed dispersal, has enabled it to spread from country estates and invade large areas of the British countryside. The cover provided by its dense canopy literally puts native plants in the shade, inhibiting their growth. Once shed, its leaves, which are also toxic and unpalatable to herbivores, create an acidic mulch that increases the inhospitableness of the ground for competing plants. The nectar from its flowers produces a honey that, if ingested by humans, causes ‘Mad Honey Disease’. Fortunately for Zafer’s father, whom curiosity once dared to taste the plant’s sweet poison, the intoxication tends to last for less than twenty-four hours, inducing symptoms such as vomiting, excessive perspiration, dizziness, shock and low blood pressure – but rarely fatalities.
