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Laurelia

Family

Atherospermataceae

A genus of three evergreen trees, two in Chile and Argentina, the third in New Zealand. Flowers mostly unisexual. Male flowers with numerous stamens and a campanulate many-lobed calyx-tube. Female and perfect flowers with a spindle-shaped to ovoid or globular calyx-tube; carpels numerous and distinct, each developing into a feathered achene.

Laurelia, with Atherosperma (q.v.), constitutes the small family Atherospermataceae, which is closely allied to the Monimiaceae and included by some botanists as a subfamily. In Chile the Monimiaceae proper are represented by the genus Peumus, whose sole species, P. boldus Mol., has aromatic leaves from which the Chileans make a digestive tea, much used after meals in place of coffee. It is too tender for a fuller description in this work.

Species articles