Viburnum tinus, Laurustinus,
מורן החורש
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| | Scientific name: |
| Viburnum tinus L. |
| Common name: |
| Laurustinus |
| Hebrew name: |
| מורן החורש |
| Family: |
| Caprifoliaceae, יערתיים |
Location: Lower Galilee, Manof (מנוף); Date Picture Taken: March 6,2009
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| | Life form: |
| Tree, phanerophyte shrub |
| Leaves: |
| Opposte, entire, smooth |
| Flowers: |
| White |
| Flowering Period: |
| March, April |
| Habitat: |
| Mediterranean maquis and forest |
| Distribution: |
| Mediterranean Woodlands and Shrublands |
| Chorotype: |
| Mediterranean |
| Summer shedding: |
| Perenating |
Location: Lower Galilee, Manof (מנוף); Date Picture Taken: March 6,2009
Derivation of the botanical name:
Viburnum, Arrow-wood, Latin name of one species of this genus; wayfaring tree.
tinus, tenth born.
Laurustinus, Laurus refers to the leaf having the appearance of bay laurel; tinus means "tenth born" inferring "late arrival," an ancient name for an uncertain plant named in old literature, which may well have been Laurustinus named for blooming so late in the year.
- The standard author abbreviation L. is used to indicate Carl Linnaeus (1707 – 1778), a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, the father of modern taxonomy.
Ötzi the Iceman, found in the Alps in 1991, had a leather and hazelwood quiver, containing two finished arrows, dressed with feathers to cause spin, and 12 unfinished arrows, all made from viburnum and dogwood.
Virgil (70 BCE – 19 BCE), a classical Roman poet, speaks of " inter viburna cupressi; ...the cypresses amidst the viburna; the image suggests tall trees amidst underwood.
James Montgomery (1771-1854), a British editor and poet:
The Laurustinus
Fair tree of winter! fresh and flowering,
When all around is dead and dry;
Whose ruby buds, though storms are louring,
Spread their white blossoms to the sky.
Green are thy leaves, more purely green
Through every changing period seen;
And when the gaudy months are past,
Thy loveliest season is the last.
Be thou an emblem - thus unfolding
The history of that maiden's mind,
Whose eye, these humble lines beholding,
In them her future lot may find:
Through life's mutations may she be
A modest evergreen like thee;
Though bless'd in youth, in age more bless'd,
Still be her latest days the best.
Robert Browning (1812 – 1889), a British poet and playwright knew the Viburnum:
This, that was a book in its time,
Printed on paper & bound in leather
Last month in the white of a matin-prime
Just when the birds sang all together.
Into the garden I brought it to read,
And under the arbute & laurustine
Read it, so help me grace in my need,
From title-page to closing line.
H.B.Tristram (1822 - 1906), The Land of Israel, a journal of Travels in Palestine (1865): "I never saw such a mass of perfumed blossom. ...a kind of guelder-rose (Viburnum tinus); a sort of sweet-scented evergreen, like the laurustinus."
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