=AZALEA.=--This handsome shrub is narcotic and poisonous in all its parts. Xenophon, in his narrative of the ‘Retreat of the Ten Thousand,’ in Asia, after the death of Cyrus, tells how his soldiers became temporarily stupefied and delirious, as if intoxicated, after partaking of the honey of Trebizond on the Black Sea. The baneful properties of this honey arose from the poisonous nature of the blossoms of the _Azalea Pontica_, from which the bees had collected it. =BACCHARIS.=--This plant is the _Inula Conyza_, and was called Baccharis after the god Bacchus, to whom it was dedicated. Virgil speaks of Baccharis as being used for making garlands, and recommends it as a plant which is efficacious as a charm for repelling calumny-- “_Bacchari frontem Cingite, ne vati noceat mala lingua futuro._” Its English name is the Ploughman’s Spikenard; and it was highly esteemed by the old herbalists on account of the sweet and aromatic qualities of its root, from which the ancients compounded an ointment which was also known as Baccharis. BACHELOR’S BUTTONS.--See Ranunculus. =BALBAGA.=--The Indian Grass, _Eleusine Indica_, had, according to De Gubernatis, the Vedic name of _Balbaja_: and, as a sacred herb, was employed in Indian religious festivals for litter, in ceremonials connected with the worship of the sacred Cow. =BALDMONEY.=--According to Gerarde, the Gentian was formerly called Baldmoyne and Baldmoney; but Dr. Prior considers that the name appertains to _Meum athamanticum_, and that it is a corruption of the Latin _valde bona_, very good. The Grete Herball, speaking of Sistra, he says, gives the following explanation:--“Sistra is Dyll, some call it Mew; but that is not so. Howbeit they be very like in properties and vertue, and be put eche for other; but Sistra is of more vertue then Mew, and the leaves be lyke an herbe called _Valde Bona_, and beareth smaller sprigges as Spiknarde. It groweth on hye hylles” (See FELDWODE). =BALIS.=--This herb was believed by the ancients to possess the property of restoring the dead to life. By its means Æsculapius himself was said to have been once resuscitated; and Pliny reports that, according to the Greek historian Xanthus, a little dog, killed by a serpent, was brought back to life by this wonderful herb _Balis_.