Species
+

Laurus nobilis L.

(Echt) loorbeer, Bay, Bay Laurel, Bay Leaf Tree

Climate known 81 photographs
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Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Laurus nobilis is an aromatic evergreen tree or large shrub with green, glabrous (smooth) leaves. It is in the flowering plant family Lauraceae. According to Muer, Jahn, & Sauerbier, the stem can be 1 metre in diameter and the tree can be as high as 20 metres. It is native to the Mediterranean region and is used as bay leaf for seasoning in cooking. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Laurus nobilis”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Laurus

Laurus is a genus of evergreen trees or shrubs belonging to the laurel family. The genus contains three or more species, including the bay laurel or sweet bay, L. nobilis, widely cultivated as an ornamental plant and a culinary herb.

Text from Wikipedia, “Laurus”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Lauraceae
Described by
L.
Native to
Corse, France, Sardegna +16
Wild records
1418 in range· 1246 open

At a glance

Warmest month
26°C
Jul, mean day; nights 16 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
859mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Oct 99 mm (CHELSA)
Light
8–39DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (September to January and March to May in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 859 mm a year, wettest October at 99 mm, driest July at 49 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 8 to 39 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -3.6 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Laurus angusta Raf.; Laurus nobilis f. lanceolata Meisn.; Laurus nobilis f. latifolia (Nees) Maire; Laurus nobilis var. angustifolia Hayne; Laurus nobilis var. angustifolia Nees and 17 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (September to January and March to May in the northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (641 mm of 859 mm) takes 8 months, September to January and March to May. Mean temperature moves 15.7 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: March to July and September to November.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 859 mm a year, wettest October at 99 mm, driest July at 49 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

859 mm a year at the habitat, 641 mm of it September to January and March to May. Wettest month October at 99 mm, driest July at 49 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 678 mm to 1335 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 8 to 39 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 8 to 39 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 5, the highest 90th-percentile month 46).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -3.6 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -3.6 °C, the absolute minimum -12.4 °C, about 21 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 37.2 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 2.4 °C in January (across the envelope cells -0.6 °C to 6.2 °C), warmest day 25.6 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -3.6 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 58 to 64% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 9 °C in Jan to 26 °C in Jul; mean night from 2 °C in Jan to 17 °C in Aug. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 859 mm of rain a year, most in Oct. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 1228 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -12.4 °C and the 99th-percentile day 37.2 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-20°-10°10°20°30°40°frost37.2° 99th-percentile day (undated)-12.4° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200mm rainDLI 8–39RH 58–64 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 1228 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C9 / 6–119 / 7–1213 / 10–1515 / 13–1719 / 17–2223 / 19–2626 / 22–2926 / 22–2922 / 19–2518 / 15–2012 / 10–159 / 7–12
Night °C2 / -1–63 / -0–65 / 3–87 / 5–1011 / 9–1414 / 12–1816 / 14–2117 / 14–2114 / 11–1811 / 8–146 / 4–103 / 1–7
Rain mm76 / 54–12460 / 44–10062 / 48–10172 / 52–12171 / 50–11856 / 32–9249 / 16–7553 / 29–8773 / 51–12399 / 69–15596 / 65–16592 / 64–146
DLI10 / 6–1316 / 11–1924 / 19–2731 / 28–3536 / 33–4139 / 36–4539 / 35–4634 / 30–4027 / 22–3017 / 13–2011 / 7–148 / 5–11
RH %64 / 59–6861 / 58–6560 / 57–6359 / 57–6260 / 56–6259 / 55–6358 / 53–6358 / 54–6360 / 57–6362 / 60–6564 / 60–6764 / 59–69

Each figure is the median across the 1228 grid cells holding the 1414 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 931:3584 (43.425, -0.775). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -12.4 °C, 1st-percentile night -3.6 °C, 99th-percentile day 37.2 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 1228 distinct grid cells holding the 1414 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 931:3584 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 43.50_-0.625, lapse-corrected -67 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 130 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeCorse, France, Sardegna, Albania, Greece, Italy, Kriti, Sicilia, Turkey-in-Europe, Yugoslavia, Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Cyprus, East Aegean Is., Lebanon-Syria, Palestine, Turkey· introduced: Great Britain, Ireland, Baleares, Portugal, Spain, Krym, Azores, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Korea, Vietnam
Kew's description“tree” · “subtropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker43.609, 3.496 · in the densest population, 1000 records (71% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1418 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 1246 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 7 km away. 394 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 4 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 4° block of the 1418 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

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Photographs: (c) zebedeugalinha, some rights reserved (CC BY) (8).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Laurus nobilis, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Green synthesis of zinc oxide nanoparticles: a comparison
Shabnam Fakhari, Mina Jamzad, Hassan Kabiri Fard (2019) · Green Chemistry Letters and Reviews
Laurus nobilis leaf extract mediated green synthesis of ZnO nanoparticles: Characterization and biomedical applications
Sekar Vijayakumar, Baskaralingam Vaseeharan, Balasubramanian Malaikozhundan, Malaikkarasu Shobiya (2016) · Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy
Refilling of Embolized Vessels in Young Stems of Laurel. Do We Need a New Paradigm?1
Melvin T. Tyree, Sebastiano Salleo, Andrea Nardini, Maria A. Lo Gullo (1999) · PLANT PHYSIOLOGY
Leaf internal diffusion conductance limits photosynthesis more strongly in older leaves of Mediterranean evergreen broad‐leaved species
Ülo Niinemets, Alessandro Cescatti, Mirco Rodeghiero, Tiina Tosens (2005) · Plant Cell & Environment
Xylem cavitation and hydraulic control of stomatal conductance in Laurel (Laurus nobilis L.)
Sebastiano Salleo, Andrea Nardini, Franco Pitt, Maria A. Lo Gullo (2000) · Plant Cell & Environment
The chemical composition of some Lauraceae essential oils and their antifungal activities
Ana Simić, Marina Sokóvić, Mihailo Ristić, Slavica Grujić-Jovanović (2004) · Phytotherapy Research
Phytochemical Analysis and in vitro Antiviral Activities of the Essential Oils of Seven Lebanon Species
Monica Rosa Loizzo, Antoine M. Saab, Rosa Tundis, Giancarlo Statti (2008) · Chemistry & Biodiversity
Qualitative and quantitative changes in the essential oil of Laurus nobilis L. leaves as affected by different drying methods
Ibtissem Hamrouni Sellami, Wissem Aidi Wannes, Iness Bettaieb, Sarra Berrima (2010) · Food Chemistry
New evidence for a role of vessel‐associated cells and phloem in the rapid xylem refilling of cavitated stems of Laurus nobilis L.
Sebastiano Salleo, Maria A. Lo Gullo, Patrizia Trifilò, Andrea Nardini (2004) · Plant Cell & Environment

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 157 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.