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Updated: May 21, 2025
LAURUS CAMPHORA, or "kusunoki," as it is called in Japan, grows mainly in those provinces in the islands Shikobu and Kinshin, which have the southern sea coast. It also grows abundantly in the province of Kishu. The amount of camphor varies according to the age of the tree. That of a hundred years old is tolerably rich in camphor.
The tree, afterwards identified and described by the Spanish botanist Mutis, is not the Laurus cinnamomum of Ceylon; but a species of laurus peculiar to the American continent to which this botanist has given the name laurus cinnamomoides.
Piedmont affords white truffles, counted the most delicious in the world: they sell for about three livres the pound. I might likewise add the cherry of the Laurus cerasus, which is sold in the market; very beautiful to the eye, but insipid to the palate. In summer we have all those vegetables in perfection.
And one of the Carthaginians, Laurus by name, having been condemned on a charge of treason and proved guilty by his own secretary, was impaled by Belisarius on a hill before the city, and as a result of this the others came to feel a sort of irresistible fear and refrained from attempts at treason.
For the Bay Laurel Laurus Nobilis of botanists happens to be not merely the evergreen, unfading plant into which Apollo metamorphosed, while pursuing, the maiden whom he loved, even as the poet, the artist turns into immortal shapes his own quite personal and transient moods, or as the fairest realities, nobly sought, are transformed, made evergreen and restoratively fragrant for all time in our memory and fancy.
"Precisely," he answered with intelligent interest "I have noticed that the leaves are sometimes put in sardine boxes." Soon after this conversation I discovered the curious circumstance that one of the greatest of peoples and perhaps the most favoured by Apollo, calls Laurus Nobilis "Laurier-Sauce." The name is French; the symbol, alas, of universal application.
The camphor-tree the Laurus camphora is another very fine tree, with red and black berries. The camphor comes from it in white fragrant drops, which, when they harden, require but slight purifying to give them the appearance which the camphor we see in England presents. Everywhere we met with the tea-tree or tea-plant. It is as common in Japan as our privet or hawthorn.
First, there is the bay-tree Laurus nobilis the leaves of which are indispensable in French cookery; while the berries furnish an oil used in medicine.
I have gladly accepted, from the hands of that tram-way road-mender, the Bay Laurel Laurus Nobilis for a symbol of all art, all poetry, and all poetic and artistic vision and emotion. It has summed up, better than words could do, what the old Herbals call the virtues, of all beautiful things and beautiful thoughts.
Next comes the Laurus camphora, from the leaves of which camphor is extracted, the crystallized essence which evaporates so easily; then the Laurus cinnamomum, the bark of which is called cinnamon; and, lastly, sassafras, the aromatic wood which is said to be a powerful sudorific." Our guide conducted us across a field of Indian corn or maize.
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