THE BAY TREE. 143 
a twist may be developed, as illustrated by our photo of 
the bole. 
The generic name ^sculus (from Latin esca, food) has no 
real connection with the tree, the ancients having given it to 
some species of Oak with edible acorns {vide Pliny), but by 
some unknown means it has become transferred to a tree whose 
fruit is far too bitter to be eaten by man. 
The Red-flowered Horse Chestnut {^sculus earned) is a 
smaller and less vigorous tree. Its origin is unknown, but it is 
believed to be a garden hybrid that made its appearance about 
1820. 
The Bay Tree {Laurus nobilis). 
The Bay is the true Laurel, of whose leaves and berries the 
wreaths were made in ancient days for poets and conquerors. 
Naturally it is more of a shrub than a tree, for though it often 
attains a height of sixty feet, it persists in sending up so many 
suckers that the tree-like character is lost. In cultivation, how- 
ever, it is often grown on a single stem, as well as formed by 
cutting into arbours and arches. We call to mind a Cornish 
village, where a garden enclosure in its square (or “ plestor,” as 
Gilbert White would say) was surrounded by about a dozen 
Bays so grown. Bays grow abundantly in the gardens of South 
Cornwall, and we always connected their general cultivation with 
the pilchard fishery. Certainly, these trees in the plestor were 
very convenient in the autumn and winter, for the leaves are an 
essential ingredient in the proper composition of that seductive 
dish, marinated pilchards, to which they impart their peculiar 
aromatic flavour. 
The Bay is a native of Southern Europe, whence it was 
introduced at some date prior to 1562. Prior says the name is 
the old Roman bacca (a berry), altered “ by the usual omission 
of ‘ c ’ between the two vowels,” this plant having become the 
T 
