PRUNUS LAURO-CERASUS. THE CHERRY LAUREL. 
Class XII. ICOSANDRIA.— Order I. MONOGYNIA. 
Natural Order, A M YG D ALE,® TH E ALMOND TRIBE. 
Fig. (a) represents a section of a flower, showing the position of the stamens; (£>) the germen and style; (c) the fruit; 
(</) a drupe cut across, to show the nut or stone. 
The cherry-laurel is a native of the Levant, and was cultivated in Britain as early as 1629; but the precise 
period of its introduction is uncertain. It is a hardy evergreen shrub, or small tree, and is planted near 
houses, and in shrubberies, as an ornamental plant, producing its elegant spikes of odorous white blossoms 
early in May. We may remark, that it is frequently mistaken for the bay, and is erroneously regarded 
as the plant which furnished crowns for the Roman heroes. There is no doubt, however, that it was the 
sweet-bay (Lauras nobilis,) which furnished the wreath worn on the brow of the victor, and of the 
priestess of Delphi. The mistake is supposed to have arisen from the bay, which is a true laurus, having 
formerly been called laurel, and the fruit of it only named bayes, while in modern times the cherry-laurel 
has usurped its name. 
The cherry-laurel attains the ordinary stature of a plum or cherry-tree, sending off long spreading 
branches, covered with a smooth brown bark. The leaves are alternate, and stand upon short foot-stalks; 
they are elliptical or obovate, tapering towards the base, pointed and curved at the apex, minutely toothed, 
smooth, and polished with a prominent midrib, and of a deep green colour. At their base, underneath, are 
two small yellow glands. The flowers are in spikes, on short, simple, axillary peduncles. The calyx is in- 
ferior, bell-shaped, and divided at the brim into five obtuse segments. The corolla consists of five small 
white concave, roundish, spreading segments. The filaments, which are alternately long and short, are 
about eighteen, awl-shaped, inserted into the calyx, and furnished with roundish yellow anthers. Before 
the petals unfold, the stamens are inflexed, and the anthers disposed in a circular form within the rim of 
the calyx, as is well represented on the plate (fig. a.) The germen is roundish, supporting a columnar 
style, and terminated by an orbicular stigma. The fruit, or drupe, is globular, of a shining black colour, 
and resembling a small cherry, both in its external appearance and internal structure. 
The plum, the cherry, and the cherry-laurel, all included by Linnaeus in his genus Prunus were con- 
sidered generically distinct by the older botanists; and in modern times they are again admitted as sub- 
genera, even by those who deny their differences to be sufficient to constitute generic characters. 
The Pruni are easily distinguished from the Cerasi and Lauro-cerasi by the fruit being pruinose or 
covered with a resinous excretion called bloom , while in both the latter the drupes are glaucous ; but in the 
Cerasi or true cherries, the inflorescence is in tufts or sertula, while in the Lauro-cerasi it is in racemes: 
the distinction is important, because it is in the latter group that prussic acid is the most abundant. 
Poisonous Effects. — The Distilled water of this plant, the virtues of which depend on the prussic 
acid that it contains, is a deadly poison. When applied to wounds in animals it induces vomiting, con- 
vulsions, great prostration of strength, diminished sensibility, and death. Its action has been found most 
rapid and intense when injected into the jugular vein. 
Many cases are on record of its effects on man; the earliest with which we are acquainted, are con- 
tained in the 37th vol. of the Phil. Trans., in a paper communicated by Dr. Madden of Dublin, part of 
which we give. “A very extraordinary accident that fell out here some months ago, has discovered to us a 
most dangerous poison, which was never before known to be so, though it has been in frequent use among 
us. The thing I mean is a simple water, distilled from the leaves of the Lauro-cerasus. The water is, at 
first, of a milky colour, but the oil which comes over with it, being in a good measure separated from the 
phlegm; by passing it through a flannel-bag, it becomes as clear as common water. It has the smell of the 
bitter almond, or peach-kernel, and has been for many years in frequent use among our housewives and 
cooks, to give that agreeable flavour to their creams and puddings. It has also been much in use among 
our drinkers of drams; and the proportion they generally use it in, has been one part of laurel-water, to 
four of brandy. Nor has the practice, (however frequent,)- ever been attended with any apparent ill conse- 
quences, till some time in the month of September, 1728, when it happened that one Martha Boyse, a 
servant, who lived with a person that sold great quantities of this water, got a bottle of it from her mistress, 
and gave it to her mother, Anne Boyse, as a very rich cordial. 
“Anne Boyse made a present of it to Frances Eaton, her sister, who was a shopkeeper in the town, 
and who she thought might oblige her customers with it. Accordingly, in a few days, she gave about two 
ounces of the water to a woman called Mary Whaley, who had bought some goods of her. Mary Whaley 
