Chap. 39.] 
THE LAUEEL. 
333 
Since his time, however, the varieties have considerably 
augmented. There is the tinus^^ for instance, by some con- 
sidered as a species of wild laurel, while others, again, regard 
it as a tree of a separate class ; indeed, it does differ from the 
laurel as to tlie colour, the berry being of an azure blue. The 
royal^ laurel, too, has since been added, which has of late 
begun to be known as the Augustan : " both the tree, as 
well as the leaf, are of remarkable size, and the berries have 
not the usual rough taste. Some say, however, that the royal 
laurel and the Augustan are not the same tree, and make out 
the former to be a peculiar kind, with a leaf both longer and 
broader than that of the A.ugustan. The same authors, also, 
make a peculiar species of the bacalia the commonest laurel 
of all, and the one that bears the greatest number of berries. 
With them, too, the barren laurel is the laurel of the tri- 
umphs, and they say that this is the one that is used by war- 
riors when enjoying a triumph — a thing that surprises me 
very much ; unless, indeed, the use of it was first introduced 
by the late Emperor Augustus, and it is to be considered as 
the progeny of that laurel, which, as we shall just now have 
occasion to mention, was sent to him from heaven ; it being the 
smallest of them all, with a crisped ''^ short leaf, and very rarely 
to be met with. 
In ornamental gardening we also find the taxa*^^ employed, 
with a small leaf sprouting from the middle of the leaf, and 
forming a fringe, as it were, hanging from it ; the spadonia,'''^ 
too, without this fringe, a tree that thrives remarkably well 
in the shade : indeed, however dense the shade may be, it will 
soon cover the spot with its shoots. There is the chamse- 
daphne,"^^ also, a shrub that grows wild ; the Alexandrian^^ 
67 Or tine tree, the Viburnum tinus of Linnaeus, one of the caprifolia. 
It is not reckoned as one of the laurels, though it has many of the same 
characteristics. Eegia. 
The barren laurel of the triumphs was the Laurus nobilis of Linnaeus, 
which has only male flowers. 
The Laurus vulgaris folio undulato of the Parisian Hortm^ Fee says. 
Not a laurel, nor yet a dicotyledon, Fee says, but one of the Aspa- 
ragea, probably the Ruscus hypoglossum of Linnaeus, sometimes known, 
however, as the Alexandrian laurel. 
Or " eunuch" laurel ; a variety, probably, of the Laurus nobilis. 
'^^ The " ground laurel according to Sprengel, this is the Buscus race- 
mosus of Linnaeus. See B. xxiv. c. 81. 
7* From Alexandria in Troas ; the Euscus hypophyllum of Linnaeus, it 
is supposed. 
