THE COMMON OR CHERRY LAUREL 53 
the Pomecitron tree (which, because we have none in our countrey, 
cannot be so well known) both for colour and largenesse, which 
yeeld a most gracefull aspect; it beareth long stalkes of whitish 
flowers, at the joynts of the leaves, both along the branches and 
towards the ends of them also, like unto the Birds Cherry or Padus 
Theophrasti, which the Frenchmen call Putier and Cerisier blanc, 
but larger and greater, consisting of five leaves with many threds in 
the middle; after which cometh the fruit or berries, as large or 
great as Flanders Cherries, many growing together one by another 
on a long stalke, as the flowers did, which are very black and 
shining on the outside, with a little point at the end, and reasonable 
sweet in taste, wherein is contained a hard, round stone, very like 
unto a Cherry stone, as I have observed as well by those I received 
out of Italy, as by them I had of Master James Cole, a merchant of 
London lately deceased, which grew at his house in Highgate, where 
there is a fair tree which he defended from the bitternesse of the 
weather in winter by casting a blanket over the top thereof every 
year. . . . I had a plant hereof by the friendly gift of Master 
James Cole, the merchant before remembred, a great lover of all 
rarities, who had it growing with him at his countrey house in High- 
gate aforesaid, where it hath flowred divers times, and born ripe 
fruitalso. . . . Dalechampius thinketh it to be Lotus Aphricana, 
but Clusius refuteth it. Those stones or kernels that were sent me 
out of Italy came by the name of Laurus Regia, The King’s Bay.” 
In the appendix to Johnson’s edition of Gerard’s 
“ Herball” (1633) is a similar description, illustrated 
by two very fair woodcuts. The bark is described as 
“swart green,” and the leaves as “snipt lightly about 
the edges” ; and it is added that— 
“Tt.is now got into many of our choice English gardens, where 
it is well respected for the beauty of the leaves, and their lasting or 
continuall greennesse. The fruit hereof is good to be eaten, but. 
what physicall vertues the tree or leaves thereof have it is not yet 
knowne.” 
In the first edition of his “Sylva” (1664), Evelyn 
speaks of it as “resembling (for the first twenty years) 
the most beautiful-headed Orange in shape and 
