Laurelia sempervirens
Credits
Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles
Recommended citation
'Laurelia sempervirens' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Synonyms
- Laurelia aromatica Juss. ex Poir.
- Laurelia serrata Bertero
Editorial Note
Bean incorrectly gave L. philippiana Looser as synonym for this species when it is in fact a replacement name for Philippi’s later (1859) illegal publication of Laurelia serrata (= Laureliopsis philippiana).
Bean treated this species separately under the names L. serrata and L. sempervirens, but they are now considered one species. The text below is heavily adapted from Bean to reflect the revised taxonomy.
An evergreen tree with four-angled downy young stems, often of very slender habit in the wild. Leaves leathery, opposite, narrowly elliptical, 21⁄2 to 5 in. long, 1 to 21⁄2 in. wide, tapered at both ends, saw-toothed, dark glossy green and glabrous above, midrib beneath furnished with yellowish, centrally attached hairs; stalk 1⁄4 in. long, downy. When crushed the leaf has a pleasant, spicy fragrance, similar to that of the bay laurel. Flowers borne in the leaf-axils in clusters of three to nine; pedicels about 1⁄8 in. long. Calyx-tube (receptacle) cup-shaped, with eight equal lobes (perianth segments). Stamens of male flowers four in number; filaments glabrous, shorter than the anthers. Receptacle globose in the fruiting stage; achenes furnished with a tuft of long, fine, brown hairs, which enable them to travel long distances on the wind. Bot. Mag., t. 8279.
Native of Chile and bordering parts of Argentina. This interesting tree is quite hardy in Sussex if well sheltered from cold winds but grows best near the Atlantic seaboard. A tree at Penjerrick in Cornwall measured 47 × 31⁄4 ft in 1911; it is now about as high and 61⁄2 ft in girth, but dying at the top (1966). Others in the same county are: Tregothnan, 46 × 41⁄2 ft (1971) and Caerhays, 42 × 31⁄4 ft (1971). The plate in the Botanical Magazine was drawn from material from the fine specimen at Kilmacurragh in Co. Wicklow, Eire. Planted about 1868 this measures 51 × 71⁄4 ft (1966). This tree bears flowers of both sexes and produces fertile seeds.
The description above is for the form previously recognised as L. serrata, now treated as synonymous. The more northerly, ‘true’ L. sempervirens (syn. L. aromatica) was distinguished by leaves with rather shallow, appressed teeth and a glabrous midrib; flowers with longer (3⁄8 to 3⁄4 in) pedicels; and downy filaments as long as the anthers. According to Dr Muñoz Pizarro, the bark of L. sempervirens is aromatic and the wood odourless, whereas in L. serrata the bark is odourless and the wood has an unpleasant smell (Sinopsis de la Flora Chilena, p. 244). Yielding a superior timber, this (northern) form was said [by Bean] to be rather rare, owing to overexploitation and to the felling or burning of the forests of Nothofagus obliqua which were its main habitat.
There is a fine specimen of L. sempervirens at Nymans in Sussex, near the glasshouses, raised from seeds collected by H. F. Comber in Chile in 1926 under No. 592 (46 × 33⁄4 ft in 1983). Other specimens: Penjerrick, Cornwall, 60 × 71⁄4 ft (1979); Caerhays, Cornwall, 50 × 41⁄4 ft (1984); Trebah, Cornwall, 62 × 43⁄4 ft (1984); Singleton Abbey, Swansea, 54 × 51⁄2 ft, a fine spire-shaped tree (1982). Wakehurst Place, Sussex, 28 × 51⁄4 ft (1984).