The redbay situation is so disturbing for us butterfly lovers! I've ordered and planted many other closely related members of the laurel family from various parts of Asia to see if palamedes swallowtails would lay eggs on any of them - so far they haven't. If the insect that spreads the disease makes it here - and so far it hasn't, knock on wood! - it would be nice if I knew of an alternate host that hopefully would be resistant. They might use sassafras, which would solve the problem, provided sassafras isn't susceptible to the same disease. I know palamedes caterpillars will eat sassafras leaves, because they've done just that when I raised spicebush and palamedes swallowtails together in the same cage. I've never found any cats on sassafras, though, so as far as I know, they don't lay eggs on it. My latest new laurel is bog spicebush, a rare shrub that is native to my immediate area. I'm hoping that spicebush swallowtails and/or palamedes swallowtails will use it - the greater the variety of host plants you have, the better. I got these bushes from Woodlander's in SC, Rhizo - I think you know the original owner. Sherry

I need them for use in one of the traditional church services of the Holy Week. We are a small old-fashioned parish and our priest likes to keep to the tradition as much as possible. We tried various ways but the best way would be to locate somebody who doesn't mind and is kind enough to snip a few twigs/branches from a big tree and ship them to us at an appropriate time. Now the Florida red bay tree - Persea bourbonia - is not one of the species I was thinking of. Ideally real bay leaves should be used - Laurus Nobilis. A possible substitiute is California bay - Umbellularia. It seems that the Florida red bay leaves are similar in appearance and fragrance and could work for our purposes as well. But if they all died I am not likely to find any, like you say.

Yes, the where and how would be helpful. Have you ever fertilized this poor baby; Is it water-logged; or is it getting enough water that really wets the soil and not just runs thru'? I've had all three problems, plus an ant one that actually killed a thriving Bay in a huge pot. The ants built a nest with-in the roots. They must make some sort of coating to keep their nest dry because when I pulled the dead plant everything was as dry as a bone... roots, nest, soil, even tho' I had watered it regularly.

Persea can be tricky to identify at first, because its leaves are not very distinctively shaped (alternate, simple, entire, and elliptical). But once you know what to look for, you'll be surprised at how often you run into it. First of all, when you crush the leaves in your fingers or scratch a twig, you'll be able to smell a pleasant, spicy aroma. As bghay mentioned, the leaves can be used in place of commercial bay leaves for cooking. Another easy way to confirm that it's a native Persea is to look for places where the edges of the leaves are distorted and curled over into these funny bulges, that may be silvery-white or brown. These are the galls that dghays mentioned, damage from the redbay psyllid (Trioza magnoliae). They don't cause serious harm to the tree. Some Persea trees will just be loaded with galls, and some will not have many, but usually there will be at least a few. When you see that, you can be pretty sure that you've got a redbay or related species. From there, it can be a little trickier to distinguish between the different species of Persea, but there's an easy way to tell between the two most common species, redbay (P. borbonia), and swamp bay (P. palustris). You can do the "tongue test." Place the underside of the leaf lightly against your tongue. If it feels distinctly fuzzy, you've got swamp bay. If it feels smooth, it's redbay. Unfortunately, both of these species (or subspecies, depending on which botanist you believe) are equally susceptible to laurel wilt. Or, you can post a picture here, and we can all compete for who gets to ID it first. ;-)