History of Rare Plants Observed in Pannonia

I transferred the plant to a pot and then tended to it carefully. I now have an elegant little shrub. The remaining shoots, when they had grown a little higher, were bent down into the earth and took root. These produced other small shrubs for me, which I shared with both noble men and friends.

I have been a little long-winded in recounting these things, and perhaps I have been a nuisance to the reader. However, I could not pass these matters over in silence. I want scholars to understand the difficulties I faced in obtaining this very rare plant.

Trebizond date original: "Trabiſon curmali"; Date of Trebizond original: "Dactylus Trapezuntin".

MOREOVER, this little shrub was sent under the name Trabiſon curmali. This name was interpreted to mean "Trebizond date." But since it has nothing in common with the Date Palm, I do not think this name was very appropriately given to it.

Pierre Belon, in the first book of his Observations, chapter 44, lists a certain tree from Trebizond that bears cherries among the evergreen trees. He also mentions it in the booklet titled On the Method of Domesticating Wild Trees, chapter 20. There, he calls it the Laurocerafus The Cherry-laurel, Prunus laurocerasus. The name combines the Latin words for laurel and cherry.. However, he does not describe its history at all, except that in the same chapter he compares its branch to a branch of the Citron tree. He also claims that he later saw a very large tree of this kind in Genoa, in the garden of Prince Doria. Since the leaves of our plant have a very close similarity to the leaves of the Citron tree and they do not fall off, and since it is likely that it was first brought from Trebizond to Constantinople, as the name indicates, I am entirely of the opinion that this is the same plant Belon observed.

Cherry-laurel.

As far as I can gather by conjecture, he gave it the name Cherry-laurel because of the similarity of the leaves to laurel and the fruit to cherries. However, he later claims to have found this name in Pliny’s natural history. Truly, I do not remember ever reading the word Laurocerafus in Pliny. Indeed, in book 15, chapter 25, where he lists the types of cherries,