98 Fruits and Fruit-Trees. 



northern Africa, and who prefixed their well-known defi- 

 nite article a/, the result making allowance for the 

 usual alphabetical changes was al-barquq. The last- 

 named then got into the Portuguese language, and the 

 spelling changed again. From the Portuguese it moved 

 into French, and so, at last, into our own, taking the 

 shape, at first of "apricock," as found in Shakspere, and 

 eventually, though not till 1782, of "apricot." The most 

 curious circumstance is that the initial #, now indissolubly 

 attached, should be the Arabic al abbreviated, certifying 

 the ancient journey of the word eastwards and then back 

 again, like a tourist-ticket. 



THE CHERRY-LAUREL ( Prunus Lauro-cerasus ). 



THE Cherry-laurel, to call the plant by its proper name, 

 is the well-known glossy evergreen ordinarily called the 

 laurel. Strictly speaking, it is not a laurel at all, this very 

 ancient appellation belonging, legitimately, to the trees 

 and shrubs which constitute the genus Laurus. Foremost 

 among the latter is the common Bay, Laurus nobilis, the 

 tree always intended by "laurel" in mediaeval literature, 

 and in the poets, until quite recently. Chaucer's " fresh 

 green laurel" is the Bay, the scent corresponding with 

 "the eglantere full well." So is the laurel which in 

 another place he associates with the wild honeysuckle 



" Some of laurel, and some full pleasantly, 

 Had chapelets of woodbine." 



