Carolina laurel cherry

Prunus caroliniana (Mill.) Aiton (Rosaceae), the Carolina laurel cherry or cherry-laurel, is an evergreen small tree or large shrub 5-12 m tall, native to the southeastern coastal plain of the United States from North Carolina south to central Florida and west to eastern Texas, where it grows in maritime forests, hammocks, fencerows and disturbed woodland edges on a wide range of soils. The smooth grey-brown bark becomes finely fissured with age. Leaves are alternate, simple, elliptic-lanceolate, 5-12 cm long, leathery, glossy dark green above and paler beneath, with entire to remotely toothed margins and a distinctive bitter-almond cyanogenic smell when crushed. Small white flowers about 5 mm across are borne in short axillary racemes 2-7 cm long in late winter and early spring. Fruits are ovoid drupes 8-12 mm long, green ripening shining black and persisting through winter; the single stone is smooth. Foliage, twigs and seeds contain prunasin and amygdalin and are toxic to livestock.