138 FOREST TREES OF CALIFORNIA. 



hale their exhilarating odors to purify and to sweeten the 

 air around them. The form of leaf is exactly that of a lance ; 

 blade three to four inches long, from a half to one inch wide, 

 leathery, arranged alternate; flowers and fruit in umbelules 

 I i. <.. little umbels) at the twig tips — hence the generic name, 

 umbelularia; also, a few flowers below in the axils of the 

 leaves, which have solitary fruit. Ever blooming — as now 

 in November, so in Spring, Summer, and Autumn — never- 

 theless they fruit in the Fall. Berries oval, about as larae 

 but scarcely as long as a French prune, or say one and a 

 quarter to one and a half inches long by three fourths of an 

 inch in diameter, greenish-yellow, or fully ripe and exposed 

 to the sun, purplish: usually clustered in three to five, and 

 at the end of twigs, sometimes solitary: in these, fatty mat- 

 ters abound with the oils, volatile and fixed. Pigs fattened 

 on them yield lard more of the consistence of tallow. A 

 kind of stearoptine, or camphor, is common to all the family 

 of Lauracse, whence the sanitary odor-sphere of this tree is 

 truly wonderful — to some too exciting for toleration, even 

 producing severe headaches, acting mainly on the posterior- 

 passional part of the brain, as any one may satisfy them- 

 selves by the powerful sensation in the back part of the head, 

 on deeply breathing over the bruised leaves. Agreeable as 

 it is to our sense, few are found to bear the odor save at a 

 distance. From the slightest collision, burnishing, or fric- 

 tion, these laurel leaves emit an extra amount of sweet, spicy 

 odor; hence the name Spice Tree, and its use as a culinary 

 substitute in early times. 



The classic reader need scarcely be reminded of the re- 

 nowned reputation of ancient Laurentia as a favorite resort 

 of the feeble, and secure retreat from the pestilence, for there 

 similar prophylactic laurels were the prevailing trees; be- 

 sides, they have always been accredited with the quality of 

 inspiring poetic ideas ; hence the designation " Poet Laureat ;" 

 and for similar reasons it is, and forever will be, the im- 

 mortal emblem and wreath for the brow of the brave, the 

 gifted bard, and the perennial crown of the wise, for all the 

 genuinely such are eminently in the affection of truths, and 

 song is that affectional language of the soul. 



This California Laurel is equally ornamental, if not far 

 superior to the European Noble Laurel (Z. nobilis). Of all 

 the species ours is the most masterly imposing, very elegant 

 and graceful evergreen tree. In briefly passing, let us lightly 

 endeavor to see why. first, the foliage is not so tumuloid in. 

 separate outline, nor as a congeries of clouded masses, as in 

 oaks and similar round-topped trees : nor is the top so 

 prudishly exact to a line-pattern as are many of those. Tn 

 these we have, with concurrent curves, a deeply thickened 

 canopy, owing to numerous upright shoots in filling the 



