CALIFORNIA LAUREL
(Umbellularia Californica)
This tree’s range lies in southern Oregon and in California. It is a member of the laurel family and is closely related to the eastern sassafras and the red and the swamp bays of the southern states; but it is not near kin to the eastern laurels which, strange as it may appear, do not belong to the laurel family, notwithstanding the names they bear.
The people of California and Oregon have several names for this interesting tree. It is known as mountain laurel, California bay tree, myrtle tree, cajeput, California olive, spice tree, laurel, bay tree, oreodaphne, and California sassafras.
Those who call it laurel name it on account of its large, lustrous, thick leaves which adhere to the branches from two to six years. All new leaves do not come at once, as with most trees, but appear a few at a time during the whole summer.
The names which connect this tree with sassafras, spice and cajeput are based on odor and taste. All members of the laurel family in this country are characterized by pungent, aromatic odor and taste, and the one under consideration shares these properties in a remarkable degree. When the leaves and the green bark are crushed, they give off a light, volatile oil in follicles which float in the air, like those of an onion, and when inhaled it produces severe pain over the eyes, and may induce dizziness and violent sneezing. Though the symptoms are alarming to one who is undergoing the experience for the first time, no serious inconvenience follows. Dried leaves are capable of producing a similar effect but with less violence. The California laurel’s close relationship to the camphor tree is readily believed by persons who inhale some of the oily spray from the crushed leaves.
Attempts have been made to produce the commercial oil of cajeput, or a substitute for it, by distilling the leaves and bark of this laurel. A passable substitute has been manufactured, but it cannot be marketed as the genuine article. By distilling the fruit a product known as umbellulic acid has been obtained.
The California laurel carries a very dense crown of leaves. This is due partly to the old crops which hang so long, and to the tree’s habit of lengthening its leading shoots during the growing season, and the constant appearance of young leaves on the lengthening shoots. It can stand an almost unlimited amount of shade itself, and is by no means backward in giving abundance of shade to small growth which is trying to struggle up to light from below. It delights in dense thickets, but it prefers thickets of its own species.
Its fruiting habits and its disposition to occupy the damp, rich soil along the banks of small water courses, are responsible for the thick stands. The fruit itself is an interesting thing. It is yellowish-green in color, as large as a good-sized olive, and looks much like it. The fruit ripens in October, and falls in time to get the benefit of the autumn rains which visit the Pacific coast. Since the trees generally grow along gulches, the fruit falls and rolls to the bottom. The first dashing rain sends a flood down the gulches, the laurel drupes are carried along and are buried in mud wherever they can find a resting place. Germination takes place soon after. The fruit remains under the mud, attached to the roots of the young plants, until the following summer.
The result is that if a laurel gets a foothold in a gulch through which water occasionally flows, lines of young laurels will eventually cover the banks of the gulch as far down stream as conditions are favorable.
The wood of California laurel weighs 40.60 pounds per cubic foot when kiln-dried. That is nine pounds heavier than sassafras. It is very heavy when green and sinks when placed in water. It is hard and very firm, rich yellowish brown in color, often beautifully mottled; but this applies to the heartwood only, and not to the thick sapwood.
Lumbermen have discovered that the wood’s color can be materially changed by immersing the logs when green, and leaving them submerged a long time. The beautiful “black myrtle,” which has been so much admired, is nothing more than California laurel which has undergone the cold water treatment.
The annual rings of growth are clearly marked by dark bands of summerwood. The rings are often wide, but not always, for sometimes the growth is very slow. The wood is diffuse-porous, and the pores are small and not numerous. The wood’s figure is brought out best by tangential sawing, as is the case with so many woods which have clearly-marked rings but small and obscure medullary rays. Figure is not uniform; that is, one trunk may produce a pattern quite different from another. The figure of some logs is particularly beautiful; these logs are selected for special purposes. Sudworth says that none of our hardwoods excels it in beautiful grain when finished, and Sargent is still more emphatic when he declares that it is “the most valuable wood produced in the forests of Pacific North America for interior finish of houses and for furniture.”
The wood of this tree has more than ninety per cent of the strength of white oak, is considerably stiffer, and contains a smaller amount of ash, weight for weight of wood. The species reaches its best development in the rich valleys of southwestern Oregon, where, with the broadleaf maple, it forms a considerable part of the forest growth. The largest trees are from sixty to eighty feet high, and two to four in diameter. In crowded stands the trunks are shapely, and often measure thirty or forty feet to the first limbs; but more commonly the trunk is short.
The boat yards in southwestern Oregon were the first to use California laurel for commercial purposes, but early settlers made a point of procuring it for fuel when they could. The oil in the wood causes it to burn with a cheerful blaze, and campers in the mountains consider themselves fortunate when they find a supply for the evening bonfire.
Shipbuilders have drawn upon this wood for fifty years for material. It is made into pilot wheels, interior finish, cleats, crossties, and sometimes deck planking. Furniture makers long ago made a specialty of the wood for their San Francisco trade. For thirty years travelers admired the superb furniture of the Palace hotel in that city, and wondered of what wood it was made. It was the California laurel. The hotel’s furniture was hand-made, or largely so, at a time when woodworking factories were few on the Pacific coast. The furniture was finally destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake. Furniture is still one of the products made of the wood, but the quantity is small. Other products are interior finish; fixtures for banks, stores and offices; musical instruments, including organs; mathematical instruments, and carpenters’ tools, including rulers, straight-edges, spirit levels, bench screws and clamps, and handles of many kinds.
Makers of novelties and small turnery find it serviceable for paper knives, pin trays, match safes, brush backs, and many articles of like kind. One of the largest uses for it is as walking beams for pumping oilwells in central and southern California. The beauty of grain has nothing to do with this use.
Country blacksmiths repair wagons and agricultural implements with this wood. Farmers have long employed it about their premises for posts, gates, floors, and building material. Cooks flavor soup with the leaves, and poultrymen make henroosts of poles, believing that the wood’s odor will keep insects away. This is probably the old sassafras superstition carried west by early California settlers.
Red Bay (Persea borbonia) is a southern member of the laurel family, and close akin to sassafras and the California laurel. The bark is red, hence the name; but it is known also as bay galls, laurel tree, Florida mahogany, false mahogany, and sweet bay. It grows from Virginia to Texas, but is most abundant near the coast, yet it ascends the Mississippi valley to Arkansas. The leaves remain on the tree a full year, but turn yellow toward the last, in consequence of which the species is not evergreen. In shape and color the leaves resemble laurel. The fruit is a small, dark blue drupe, with thin flesh. The wood is heavy, hard, very strong, rather brittle, bright red, with thin, lighter-colored sapwood. It was once very popular in the South for furniture. Rare pieces, some 150 years old, are still found in southern homes. The wood was exported prior to 1741 from the Carolinas, and the quantity seems to have been considerable. It was then regarded as a finer wood than mahogany. It was exported to the West Indies, where mahogany was abundant, and was made into furniture and finish for the homes of wealthy planters and merchants. An old report describes the wood as resembling “watered satin.” It was in early demand by shipbuilders, but it has now ceased to go to boat yards. Except in rare instances, it is not reported by any wood-using industries. In Texas a little is made into pin trays, small picture frames, canes, and shelves. It deserves a more important place, for when polished and finished, it is one of the handsomest woods of this country. Trees attain a height of sixty or seventy feet, and a diameter of two or three.
Swamp Bay (Persea pubescens) attains a height of thirty or forty feet, but is seldom more than a foot in diameter, and is too small for saw timber. The wood is strong, heavy, rather soft, orange colored, streaked with brown, and not as handsome as its larger relative, red bay, which is associated with it from North Carolina to Mississippi. It is an evergreen in some cases, but in others the leaves turn yellow the second spring. The black fruit is a drupe nearly an inch long. The wood is without attractive figure, since its medullary rays are obscure, and the annual rings are indistinct and produce little contrast when the trunks are sawed tangentially. Color is the chief attraction that can be claimed for the wood. A little is occasionally worked into interior finish.
California laurel branch
