50 FAMILIAR TREES 
and hence the term “bachelor” became extended to 
unmarried men in general. 
The Laurel was also believed to be a protection 
against lightning; and accordingly, the Emperor 
Tiberius, when it thundered, wore a Laurel-wreath 
made from the tree at the imperial villa on the 
Flaminian Way, which sprang from a shoot said to 
have been miraculously sent from heaven to Livia 
Drusilla. Used as an emblem of truth, like the Olive, 
both trees were equally forbidden to be put to any 
profane uses; but the crackling of burning Laurel- 
leaves was also employed as a means of divination. 
Dr. Lindley argued that the true Delphic Laurel 
was Rus'cus racemo’sus, sometimes called the 
“ Alexandrian Laurel,” a low-growing, berry-bearing 
shrub, with glossy green leaf-like branches, akin to 
our English Butcher’s-broom; but it is more gener- 
ally considered that the Daphne of the Greeks was 
our Bay-tree (Law'rus nobilis L.), fine trees of 
which now adorn the banks of the Peneus. This, 
no doubt, was Chaucer’s 
“Fresh grene laurer tree, 
That gave so passing a delicious smelle,”’ 
and was the only Laurel generally known in Europe 
in Shakespeare’s time. Its popular name has now, 
however, been completely transferred to a totally 
different and unrelated plant, the “Cherry Bay” or 
“Cherry Laurel” (Prunus Laurocerasus L.). There 
is little in common between the two plants beyond 
the evergreen character of their leaves. 
The Cherry Laurel was referred by Linneus to 
the genus Prunus, and is retained in that position 
