History of Rare Plants

LAUROCERASUS.

Two botanical woodcut illustrations. On the left, a branch of Laurocerasus with large, serrated, ovate leaves and two spikes of small white flowers. On the right, a similar branch bearing clusters of dark, round fruits. Between the branches are two detached fruits, one showing the internal seed. Handwritten annotations in ink are visible near the illustrations.

Prunus Laurocerasus
C. B. 678
see chap. 185
Linn. 5.673

I do not believe that the history of this tree has been set forth by anyone, nor indeed that it is even known to the herbalists of our age. Since, however, it is of that kind which is green with perpetual foliage, and is most elegant in appearance, it seems to deservedly claim for itself a place among the first in these Commentaries of ours.

History of the Laurocerasus.

THE Laurocerasus (for so I am pleased to call it, and I will explain the reason for the name hereafter) is indeed a tree of fair size, with a straight trunk provided with many branches, which are covered with a dark green bark, though the young shoots are entirely green. The leaves surround the branches alternately; they are not deciduous, and rival those of the broad-leaved Laurel, or rather the leaves of the Citron tree, being somewhat serrated around the edges, with several veins running out from the midrib to the sides; they are shiny on the upper surface, but not at all on the lower. Their color in old leaves is a dark green, in the young a pale green. The taste is bitter, resembling peach kernels or bitter almonds. I did not at first observe the flower, for the little tree I was nourishing died without flower or fruit; but that which I had given to Master Aicholtz flowered excellently in the month of May, in the year 1583. A few years later it flowered also for the most distinguished Master Joachim Camerarius, to whom I had given one, as he wrote to me from Nuremberg to Vienna. Moreover, it bears oblong spikes at the ends of the old branches among the leaves of the previous year, a finger's length and somewhat thick, on which are born numerous flowers, crowded together in the manner of a cluster on short stalks; they are white, consisting of five small petals, and provided with many small stamens around the circuit of the center, not much unlike the flowers of the cherry commonly called the Bird Cherry, yet devoid of scent; these offered no rudiment of fruit, but were quite deciduous. Above these the branches then bud and push forth new leaves. The fruit, which I did not see growing on the tree, but which was sent from Constantinople in the year 1574 and 1586, was of an oval shape, the size of a small plum, very close to the Sebesten fruit, black and wrinkled on the outside,
Brünn plums. provided with a sweet and edible pulp, like the pulp of the Ceratia or the plums of Brünn in Moravia, containing a stone that is orbicular at the base and then gradually ends in an oblong and slender point, as my Belgian friends can attest, to whom I then
Galatensian plums. shared that fruit along with Galatensian or Peran plums, which are white, somewhat oblong, and sour. Although I carefully committed both fruits to the earth, even in earthen pots so that I might tend them more conveniently, neither
Prunus galatensis, Linn. 5.673 nevertheless germinated. But that which was received from Byzantium under the same name in the year 1581, although endowed with a similar form, color, and taste, had two or three flat seeds beneath the pulp, enclosed in no shell, of a chestnut color, very much approaching the seeds of the African Lotus, commonly called Guaiacana.