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FREE: Beautiful California Bay Laurel - 10 fresh nuts

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Description

The listing, Beautiful California Bay Laurel - 10 fresh nuts has ended.

This beautiful California native tree (Umbellularia californica) has many names: pepperwood, spicebush, cinnamon bush, peppernut tree, headache tree, mountain laurel, and Balm of Heaven. In Oregon they cal it 'Oregon Myrtle'. Myrtle wood is sought after by woodworkers and the makers of musical instruments.

The tree is evergreen and can, in time, grow to enormous proportions. The 'champion' bay tree, which lives here in Mendocino County, measured in 1997, is 108' high, with a crown spread of 119' and a trunk 14' in diameter. More typically, these trees grow to between 40 to 80 feet in height. (It takes a while!)
OR they can be grown in a large container as a patio tree.

The aromatic leaves can be used in cooking as a substitute for spice-jar bay laurel (laurus nobilis -native to the Mediterranean).

When mature, this tree produces a 1" fruit that resembles a miniature avocado. Doesn't taste like one though & there is hardly any flesh - just one nut (California Bay nut - about the size of a filbert). These nuts were a staple of the Native Californians - roasted, they are quite delicious: your grandkids will love them.

The leaf has been used as a cure for headache, toothache, and earache, to treat rheumatism and neuralgias, stomach aches, colds, sore throats, etc. The Pomos treated headaches by placing a single leaf in the nostril.

These nuts were just collected. They can either be sown immediately where they are to grow, or they can be stratified in the fridge for about 90 days and planted when they begin to sprout. (I will provide links to this info...haven't tried it either way myself - they grow everywhere around here.

Note that they do like moisture - the trees that provided these nuts are growing alongside the river (see last pic) and the base is underwater during the winter flood season. But they also grow on seemingly bone-dry hillsides -- folk water-wisdom has it that the presence of a bay tree indicates an underground water source.

Questions & Comments

hmmm...good question -- the scientist-johnnies don't seem to know. (I was curious too, so I googled it: no 'official' answer)...I found that they do flower at an early age, so it might not be too long before you get a couple nuts to taste -- but copious nut production comes with maturity - like,say, 30 years. I haven't noticed nuts under smaller trees, but that may just be that the squirrels got there first. Also: nut production (quantity and size) seem to be somewhat dependent on habitat. When I was a kid, I knew bay trees as large single specimens on the dry hillsides & seasonal creek banks where we went to hunt lizards. I don't remember seeing bay nuts then -- but then I wasn't into foraging. Where I live now is on the bank of a river, and there are lotsa bay trees and lotsa nuts.

Dec 4th, 2013 at 11:10:22 PM PST by

is this the bay that people use for cooking??

Dec 6th, 2013 at 11:51:04 PM PST by

You can use it for seasoning - taste is very similar to (but stronger-flavored than) 'true' bay laurel (what you get in the spice jars) - but that's a different species, native to the lands around the Mediterranean.

Dec 7th, 2013 at 3:54:24 PM PST by

Beautiful California Bay Laurel - 10 fresh nuts is in the Home & Garden | Gardening | Gardening Seeds & Bulbs category