Azores laurel
Laurus azorica
Family · Lauraceae · Irritating
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The tree that gives laurisilva its name and forms the canopy of the humid Azorean forests. A large, leathery, glossy leaf that smells of bay when broken, and young shoots covered in down.
Oak woods · Uplands · Streams and ditches
Also known asCanary laurel, Azorean laurel
How to tell it
Alternate, oval to elongated leaves eight to fifteen centimetres, dark green and glossy above, paler beneath, with a slightly wavy edge. The year's shoots are visibly hairy, which separates it from kitchen bay. In the vein axils beneath there are small pits where mites live. Oval black berries. Range: endemic to the Azores, absent from the mainland.
What it is confused with
Bay laurel
Laurus nobilis
Both smell of bay and the leaf serves the same purpose. The difference is in the young shoot: hairy on Azores laurel, smooth on kitchen bay. And geography settles it nearly always, since the mainland has the common one and the Azores this one.
Open sheet →What it is for
The leaf is used as a seasoning in the Azores, just as common bay is, and the wood served for furniture and building. The berries are not eaten. It is a structural tree of a European priority habitat, so you look at it and take a leaf, not a branch.
Traditionally used as food. This is not permission to eat it.