Plants of the camphor and cinnamon trees were captured, from the French, in 1782, by Admiral Rodney, and afterwards conveyed to Jamaica, and propagated there.
Several shrubs and plants of our own country contain camphor in considerable quantity. The principal of these are rosemary, sage, lavender, and marjoram.
130. The COMMON SWEET BAY (Laurus nobilis) is an evergreen shrub, which grows in Italy and other southern parts of Europe, and is principally celebrated as that which was anciently used to form the crown of victory among poets.
Its leaves are of shining green colour, somewhat spear-shaped, and often waved towards the edge. The flowers appear in April and May, in clusters of three or four together on short footstalks. The corolla is in four segments of yellowish white colour, and is succeeded by an oval berry covered with a dark green rind.
This handsome shrub is common in our gardens and shrubberies. Its leaves afford, by distillation, an useful oil, which is occasionally employed in medicine. They are also employed, in cookery, to flavour custards, puddings, stews, and pickles; and Dr. Woodville assures us that they may thus be used not only with safety, but even with advantage, as assisting digestion.
The berries or fruit of the bay tree, which have an aromatic smell, and a warm, bitterish, and pungent taste, were much used by the ancient Romans for culinary purposes. We import them chiefly from the coasts of the Mediterranean. From the berries, in a recent state, the people of Spain and Italy obtain, by pressure, a green aromatic oil, which is employed in medicine, externally, as a stimulant in nervous, paralytic, and other disorders.
131. The ALLIGATOR PEAR is a pear-shaped fruit, produced by a species of bay tree (Laurus persea), that is much cultivated in the West Indies.
This tree, which is an evergreen, has a straight stem, and grows to a considerable height. Its leaves are somewhat oval, leathery, transversely veined, and of beautiful green colour; and the flowers grow in bunches.
To the inhabitants of the West Indian islands, particularly the negroes, this fruit, which ripens in the months of August and September, is an agreeable, and, in some respects, an important article of diet. When ripe the pulp is of yellow colour, of consistence somewhat harder than that of butter, and, in taste, not much unlike marrow. The negroes frequently make their meals of these pears, a little salt, and plantains; and they are occasionally served up at the tables of the white people as fruit.
Their exterior surface is covered with a green skin; and in the centre there is a large round seed or stone, extremely hard and woody, with an uneven surface. This stone is used for the marking of linen. The cloth is held or tied over the stone; and the letters are pricked by a needle, through the cloth, into the outer covering of the stone. By this means it is stained of an indelible reddish brown colour, in the direction along which the needle has passed. The leaves are used by the negroes medicinally.