The bay leaf is an aromatic leaf commonly used in cooking. It can be used whole or in a dried or ground form.
The Laurales are an order of flowering plants. They are magnoliids, related to the Magnoliales.
The Magnoliales are an order of flowering plants.
The flowering plant family Lauraceae, the laurels, includes the true laurel and its closest relatives. This family comprises about 2850 known species in about 45 genera worldwide. They are dicotyledons, and occur mainly in warm temperate and tropical regions, especially Southeast Asia and South America. Many are aromatic evergreen trees or shrubs, but some, such as Sassafras, are deciduous, or include both deciduous and evergreen trees and shrubs, especially in tropical and temperate climates. The genus Cassytha is unique in the Lauraceae in that its members are parasitic vines. Most laurels are highly-poisonous.
Persea is a genus of about 150 species of evergreen trees belonging to the laurel family, Lauraceae. The best-known member of the genus is the avocado, P. americana, widely cultivated in subtropical regions for its large, edible fruit.
Laurel forest, also called laurisilva or laurissilva, is a type of subtropical forest found in areas with high humidity and relatively stable, mild temperatures. The forest is characterized by broadleaf tree species with evergreen, glossy and elongated leaves, known as "laurophyll" or "lauroid". Plants from the laurel family (Lauraceae) may or may not be present, depending on the location.
Cassytha is a genus of some two dozen species of obligately parasitic vines in the family Lauraceae. Superficially, and in some aspects of their ecology, they closely resemble plants in the unrelated genus Cuscuta, the dodders. When fruit and flowers are absent in the field, the physical resemblance is so close that few people without technical training can discern the difference. In this respect and in their ecology the two genera present a spectacular example of convergent evolution. Nonetheless, Nickrent comments that "Cassytha is uneqivocally assigned to Lauraceae based on (both) morphological and molecular data." In its divergence from habits typical of the Lauraceae, Cassytha also presents examples of mosaic evolution
Dr. André Joseph Guillaume Henri 'Dok' Kostermans was an Indonesian botanist of Dutch ancestry. He was born in Purworejo, Java, Dutch East Indies, and educated at Utrecht University, taking his doctoral degree in 1936 with a paper on Surinamese Lauraceae.
Carl Daniel Friedrich Meissner was a Swiss botanist.
Beilschmiedia is a genus of trees and shrubs in family Lauraceae. Most of its species grow in tropical climates, but a few of them are native to temperate regions, and they are widespread in tropical Asia, Africa, Madagascar, Australia, New Zealand, North America, Central America, the Caribbean, and South America. The best-known species to gardeners in temperate areas are B. berteroana and B. miersii because of their frost tolerance. Seeds of B. bancroftii were used as a source of food by Australian Aborigines. Timbers of some species are very valuable.
Ocotea porosa is a species of plant in the Lauraceae, often placed in the related genus Phoebe. It is commonly called imbuia or Brazilian walnut because its wood resembles that of some walnuts. The tree is a major commercial timber species in Brazil, used for high-end furniture, mostly as decorative veneers, and as flooring. The wood is very hard, measuring 3,684 lbf on the Janka scale. The wood is also fragrant with hints of nutmeg and cinnamon. The tree is also a popular horticultural tree in subtropical regions of the world. In its native habitat it is a threatened species.
Urbanodendron is a genus of flowering plants in the family Lauraceae. The three species are native to Brazil.
Carl Christian Mez was a German botanist and university professor. He is denoted by the author abbreviation Mez when citing a botanical name.
Bernard Hyland, known as Bernie Hyland, is an Australian botanist.
Endlicheria is a neotropical plant genus consisting of approximately 60 species, occurring mostly in northern South America and the Amazon region. Most species are medium-sized trees, sometime up to 40 metres in height, but a few species are shrubs. DNA molecular data shows that it is closely related to Rhodostemonodaphne and Ocotea.
Kubitzia is an American neotropical flowering plant genus in the family Lauraceae with two species from South America.
Phoebe hainesiana is a species of tree in the family Lauraceae, native to India. It is the state tree of Manipur.
The Tocantins–Araguaia–Maranhão moist forests (NT0170), also called the Tocantins/Pindaré moist forests, is an ecoregion in the north of Brazil to the south of the mouth of the Amazon River. It is part of the Amazon biome. The ecoregion contains the city of Belém, capital of the state of Pará. It is the most developed part of the Amazon region, and is one of the most severely degraded natural habitats of the region.
Daphnephila is a genus of gall midge that appears in the Palearctic and Oriental biogeographic realms. Daphnephila species create leaf and stem galls on species of laurel plants, particularly in Machilus. Based on analysis on sequences of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I, it has been suggested that in this genus, the stem-galling habit is a more ancestral state as opposed to the leaf-galling habit.
Camphora is a genus of evergreen plants belonging to the laurel family, Lauraceae. The genus contains approximately 20 species, distributed in tropical and subtropical regions of Asia. This genus was previously considered a synonym of Cinnamomum.
