Sniff What I’m Steppin’ In

I forgot a couple things on my list yesterday.  One in particular is Winter Daphne, aka Daphne Odora.

Daphne is a genus of between 50-95 species of deciduous and evergreen shrubs in the plant family Thymelaeaceae, native to Asia, Europe, and north Africa. They are noted for their scented flowers and poisonous berries. The flowers lack petals and have four (rarely five) petaloid sepals, ranging from greenish-yellow to white and bright pink; most of the evergreen species tend to have greenish flowers, while the deciduous species tend to have pink flowers. In many species, flowering is in late winter or very early spring.” ~ Wikipedia

Daphne Odora blooms in North Carolina during February and lasts until about now, early April.  It grows in the form of a large shrub, and is covered with flowers that smell like absolute heaven.  My parents have one in their backyard, and it makes that entire side of the yard smell like heaven.  It’s the best smell in the world.  It’s also very poisonous.  Why is it that things that typically smell really good, feel really good or taste really good are typically either poisonous or bad for us???