Map

plant

Laurel

Nature

Laurel as a plant people have named and used. Victory leaf, Apollo crown, kitchen bay-kin — one living kind, not a single symbol.

Hellenic religion

  • Laurel appears in Hellenic religion.

    Ovid’s Metamorphoses seats the laurel among Daphne’s transformation fleeing Apollo. A named laurel in that poem, not olive as the Qur’an plant already walked and not a cooking-bay dump alone.

    from Ovid · Metamorphoses, 8 CE

    appears in · sourced · documented

  • Laurel is used in Medicine.

    Dioscorides’ De Materia Medica lists laurel/bay (daphne) berries, leaves, and oil among warming drugs. A named laurel in that handbook, not Daphne’s Ovid metamorphosis already walked as appears_in and not bay as a second entity for the same plant.

    from Pedanius Dioscorides · De Materia Medica, 1st century CE

    used in · sourced · documented

  • Laurel is historically related to Oil.

    In Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Laurel is named in the finish and formula lemmas beside Oil.

    from Ebenezer Cobham Brewer · Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1870 (and later PD editions)

    historically related to · sourced · documented

  • Laurel is associated with Crown.

    In Twining’s Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediæval Christian Art, the corruptible Crown of the heathen contests was a garland, probably of Laurel or Olive, set against the incorruptible Crown of glory — laurel forms that crown.

    from Louisa Twining · Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediaeval Christian Art, 1852 (new ed. 1885)

    associated with · sourced · documented

  • Laurel is historically related to Milk.

    In Beeton’s Household Management, for Folkestone pudding-pies two laurel or bay leaves (or lemon rind) are infused in the milk until well flavoured, then strained before ground rice is boiled in that milk.

    from Isabella Beeton · Book of Household Management, 1861

    historically related to · sourced · documented

Roman religion

  • Laurel appears in Roman religion.

    Virgil’s Aeneid seats laurel among Apollo’s sacred tree and Latinus’s palace omen-tree where the bees settle. A named laurel in that epic, not Daphne’s Ovid metamorphosis restated and not myrtle as Venus’s plant already walked.

    from Virgil · Aeneid, 19 BCE (unfinished at the poet’s death)

    appears in · sourced · documented

sources