Worldwide, many other kinds of plants in diverse families are also called "bay" or "laurel", generally due to similarity of foliage or aroma to Laurus nobilis.

[11][4] Laurus nobilis is a widespread relict of the laurel forests that originally covered much of the Mediterranean Basin when the climate of the region was more humid.

With the drying of the Mediterranean during the Pliocene era, the laurel forests gradually retreated, and were replaced by the more drought-tolerant sclerophyll plant communities familiar today.

[12] Dried laurel berries and pressed leaf oil can both be used as robust spices, and the wood can be burnt for strong smoke flavoring.

[16] One of the most important pests affecting ornamental laurels is caused by the jumping plant louse Trioza alacris, which induces the curling and thickening of the edge of the leaves for the development of the insect's nymphs, eventually creating a necrosed gall.

[20] The Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder listed a variety of conditions which laurel oil was supposed to treat: paralysis, spasms, sciatica, bruises, headaches, catarrhs, ear infections, and rheumatism.

[22] Other versions of the myth, including that of the Roman poet Ovid, state that Daphne was transformed directly into a laurel tree.

According to the poet Lucian, the priestess of Apollo known as the Pythia reputedly chewed laurel leaves from a sacred tree growing inside the temple to induce the enthusiasmos (trance) from which she uttered the oracular prophecies for which she was famous.

It was taken as an omen of the impending end of the Julio-Claudian dynasty that in the reign of Nero the entire grove died, shortly before he was assassinated.

[34] An early Chinese etiological myth for the phases of the moon involved a great forest or tree which quickly grew and lost its leaves and flowers every month.

After the Sui and Tang dynasties, this was sometimes connected to a woodsman named Wu Gang, sentenced to cut at a self-repairing tree as a punishment for varying offenses.

By the Qing dynasty, the chengyu "pluck osmanthus in the Toad Palace" (蟾宫折桂, Chángōng zhé guì) meant passing the imperial examinations,[35][36][37] which were held around the time of the lunar festival.

The similar association in Europe of laurels with victory and success led to its translation into Chinese as the 月桂 or "Moon gui".

The laurel leaves in the coat of arms of Kaskinen, Finland (Swedish: Kaskö) may have been meant to refer to local flowering, but its origin may also be in the name of the family Bladh (Swedish: blad; 'leaf'); two members of the family – a father and a son – acquired both town rights and the status of staple town for the village at the time.

lauri folii), consisting of 45% eucalyptol, 12% other terpenes, 8–12% terpinyl acetate, 3–4% sesquiterpenes, 3% methyleugenol, and other α- and β-pinenes, phellandrene, linalool, geraniol, and terpineol.