THE SPURGE LAUREL— continued. 
Paper is made from the inner bark of several Indian species ; and the bark, 
leaves, and berries of European forms have been used in popular medicine as 
purgatives and emetics, whence Daphne Gnidium Linne, of the Mediterranean 
area, is known as Spurge Flax ; D. Mezereon Linne, one of our garden favourites 
which occurs, though very rarely, wild in this country, as Spurge Olive ; and our 
commoner D. Laureola Linne as Spurge Laurel. Thus Chaucer in the “ Nonnes 
Preestes Tale ” mentions “ Laureole ” among laxatives, and Turner in his “ Names 
of Herbes ” writes : — 
“Daphnoides called of the commune sort Laureola, in englishe Lauriel, Lorel or Loury, groweth plentuously in hedges 
in England, and some abuse the seede of it for coccognidio.” 
Many hardy European species, and others, more tender, from Asia, are valued 
in our gardens and greenhouses as early-flowering and sweet-scented flowers. 
Linne, however, writes disparagingly of our Spurge Laurel that it is “ sad in 
colour, ungrateful in scent, and blossoms in a gloomy season.” Its average date 
of flowering is February 6th ; but we have found it in blossom on the outskirts of 
Salisbury Plain as early as December 26th. The yellowish-green flowers hanging in 
racemes below the terminal rosettes of glossy leaves would, it is true, not be noticed 
for beauty at any other season ; but their honeyed fragrance has never seemed 
“ ungrateful ” to us. 
Both this species and the rarer pink-flowered D. Mezereon are confined in a wild 
state to calcareous soil ; and neither species extends into Scotland or Ireland. 
Dr. Moss enumerates them among “ the large number of associated species of trees 
and shrubs ” in ash-woods on such soil, together with Linden, Spindle-tree, White- 
beam, Privet, Dogwood, Wayfaring-tree, Yew, and Juniper. While D. Mezereon 
has its fragrant pink flowers all along its stems in the axils of the fallen leaves 
of the previous year, and has red berries, the leaves of the Spurge Laurel are more 
confined to the summit of its stem and are evergreen, while the greenish blossoms 
are followed by black fruit. 
The name Daphne reminds us of the poetic fancy of ancient Greece which 
peopled every stream and grove with nymphs and dryads. When the sunshine 
glittered on a swift mountain torrent as it hid itself in the evergreen recesses of some 
wooded glen, the sun-god Apollo seemed to pursue the swift-footed Daphne, 
daughter of the river-god Peneus, and the other gods, in answer to her prayer for 
aid, turn her into one of the laurels whose roots in the warm and superficially dry 
calcareous soil were watered by her percolating stream. As a generic name Daphne 
dates from Dioscorides, and Laureola , a diminutive of Laurus , from Dodoens. 
