56 FAMILIAR TREES 



invaluable as underwood, relieving the monotony of 

 the bare stems of timber trees. When so grown 

 it requires to be periodically cut back or pegged 

 down, or its stems become naked below. A Laurel- 

 bush may frequently be seen from twenty to thirty 

 feet high, and with stems considerably over a foot 

 in diameter ; but perhaps the largest in the world 

 are those described by Loudon in 1835, at Minward, 

 in Argyllshire, and at Shelton Abbey. Of these, 

 the former was then thirty-one feet high, six feet 

 nine inches in the diameter of the trunk, and 176 

 feet in the circumference of the head, whilst the 

 latter, then ninety years old, was forty-five feet high, 

 six feet in the diameter of its trunk, and nearly 

 320 feet in the circumference of its head ! 



The allied Portugal Laurel is probably, as its name 

 indicates, a native of Portugal, and of Madeira, where 

 it reaches from forty to sixty feet in height, with a 

 trunk sometimes two feet in diameter. Its leaves 

 are narrower than those of the Cherry Laurel, and 

 a much darker shade of green, free from the yellow 

 tint of the allied species. Its buds and twigs also 

 are purplish-red instead of green. In our gardens it 

 generally forms merely a rounded bush. 



