Amoretti—Sonnet xxix.
And in the following passage (written in the lifetime of Shakespeare) the Laurel and the Bay are both named as the same tree—
"And when from Daphne's tree he plucks more Baies
His shepherd's pipe may chant more heavenly lays."
Christopher Brooke—Introd. verses to Browne's Pastorals.
In the present day no garden of shrubs can be considered complete without the Bay tree, both the common one and especially the Californian Bay (Oreodaphne Californica), which, with its bright green lanceolate foliage and powerful aromatic scent (to some too pungent), deserves a place everywhere, and it is not so liable to be cut by the spring winds as the European Bay.[32:2] Parkinson's high praise of the Bay tree (forty years after Shakespeare's death) is too long for insertion, but two short sentences may be quoted: "The Bay leaves are of as necessary use as any other in the garden or orchard, for they serve both for pleasure and profit, both for ornament and for use, both for honest civil uses and for physic, yea, both for the sick and for the sound, both for the living and for the dead; . . . so that from the cradle to the grave we have still use of it, we have still need of it."
The Bay tree gives us a curious instance of the capriciousness of English plant names. Though a true Laurel it does not bear the name, which yet is given to two trees, the common (and Portugal) Laurel, and the Laurestinus, neither of which are Laurels—the one being a Cherry or Plum (Prunus or Cerasus), the other a Guelder Rose (Viburnum).[33:1]
FOOTNOTES:
[32:1] "The Anglo-Saxon Beay was not a ring only, or an armlet: it was also a coronet or diadem. . . . The Bays, then, of our Poets and the Bay tree were in reality the Coronet and the Coronet tree."—Cockayne, Spoon and Sparrow, p. 21.
[32:2] The Californian Bay has not been established in England long enough to form a timber tree, but in America it is highly prized as one of the very best trees for cabinet work, especially for the ornamental parts of pianos.