On 03-24-98 David Martorana wrote to Day Brown... 
 DM>   P.S. QUESTION! To take advantage of your studies into mythic 
 DM>        symbologies (especially, "active" plant life), I'm having 
 DM>        trouble with the meaning of the "hundred headed narcissus" 
 DM>        that Persephone was about to pick in that instant just before 
 DM>        her abuction from next to Lake Pergusa. As the flower will 
 DM>        be included in my painting, I know my grandchildren WILL 
 DM>        question the WHY and HOW of it. In the Robert Graves "Greek 
 DM>        Myths" there is some suggestion that the Narcissus is actually 
 DM>        a numbing narcotic and more likely the Hyacinth, but I can 
 DM>        find no modern references to either the Narcissus or Hyacinth 
 DM>        having narcotic properties. .............Any help appreciated. 
Damn good question.  A few times now, I have run into one source 
or another that has pondered the same, and AFAIK, there is not a 
single ancient document nor dug find to suggest what it is.  One 
guy also mentioned the line in the Iliad, where Helen pours some 
"Nepenthes" into her hubby's drink to ensure sleeping during her 
escape with Paris to Troy... also a mystery drug. 
 
Wasson traces the etiology of 'soma' from both the Sanskrit, and 
the ancient Greek, to sacred fungi of pre-historic Aryan shamen. 
My best bet.  Even though one might discover what the fungi was, 
the change in climate and ecology since those times suggests the 
fungi of flower may very well no longer exist. 
 
There is another wall painting of Persephone from Stabiae, which 
was buried with Pompei, now in the Museo Nazionale in Naples; in 
is she is picking flowers which appear to be some kind of daisy, 
a four foot leggy plant, except there are only four petals, like 
a dogwood, with a dark center.  I dunno of any such flower. 
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