221 



. Ord. LAURACE^E. 

 Tribe Laurinete. 



Genus Lauras,* Linn. Meissner, in DC. Prod., xv, pt. 1, 

 pp. 233-240. Species 2, one Mediterranean, the other 

 Canarian. 



221. Laurus nobilis, Linn., Sp. Plant., ed. I, p. 369 (1753). 

 Bay. Sweet Bay. True Laurel. 



Figures. Woodville, t. 235 ; Steph. & Ch., t. 125 ; Nees, 1. 132 ; Hayne, 

 xii, t. 18; Berg & Sch., t. 5 f; Fl. Grseca, t. 365; Reichenb., Ic. Fl. 

 Germ., xii, t. 673 ; Nees, Gen. Fl. Germ. 



Description. A much-branched shrub or small tree, sometimes 

 reaching 25 feet or even more, with a smooth, olive-green or 

 reddish bark, young twigs glabrous. Leaves very numerous, 

 evergreen, alternate, without stipules, shortly stalked, 3 4 inches 

 long, lanceolate, acute and tapering at both ends, the margin 

 quite entire and usually more or less wavy, smooth, thick, 

 shining, paler and strongly veined beneath, and covered with 

 small immersed glands. Flowers unisexual, dioecious, small, on 

 smooth pedicels, arranged in small, umbellate, stalked clusters of 

 (usually) 5, surrounded by an involucre of blunt, concave, reddish 

 bracts, which enclose the umbel when in bud, peduncles stout, 

 curved, a pair coming off opposite one another from a very short 

 axillary branch. Male flowers : perianth divided almost to the 

 very base into 4 oval-oblong, broad, blunt, membranous, spreading, 

 imbricate, yellowish-white divisions, minutely dotted with glands ; 

 stamens 12 in three rows of 4, smooth, the outer row alternating 

 with the perianth-segments, a little longer than the rest, the 

 other two rows with two small stalked, cordate, yellow " glands " 

 near the base of the filaments ; anthers oval, 2 -celled, introrse, 

 opening by valves which hinge at the top ; no trace of a pistil. 

 Female flowers : perianth as in the male ; andrcecium repre- 

 sented by 4 oblong, cordate, apiculate, stalked, fleshy, veined 



* Laurus, the classical name for the tree; in Greek, 



