wrote:
You're correct - it's the Bay laurel (Laurus nobilis) - not the olive.

Paolo

"Stan Goodman" wrote in message news:uViCr8LlbtmJ-pn2-Oq2BrhM5h4EM@poblano...

On Wed, 25 Aug 2004 21:01:15 UTC, (EvelynMcH)
opined:

Does anyone recognize what plant is being used for the wreaths with which
the Olympic medal winners are being crowned? It is certainly not laurel,
which is the traditional source of the branches for this purpose.

The wreath is actually an olive wreath, made of olive leaves, like those used
in the early olympics by the Greeks. The wreaths are proving so popular that
there is talk that they may be used in future Olympics.

Doesn't look like olive. The green is too bright. Olive trees are almost
grey.


The Romans .... The laurel they used is a variety of bay laurel,

I don't know what "bay laurel" is. The plant that grows around the
Mediterranean
is L. Nobilis, which is ubiquitous here. It would take over my lot, if I let
it.

The ones being used in the current games are olive. In the ancient
Olympic games, olive wreaths were originally used but in the rival
Pythian Games in Delphi they used laurel wreaths to honor Apollo, who is
symbolized by laurel. In the Isthmian Games a wreath of celery was used
and in the Nemean Games it was a wreath of parsley. It was the Romans
who more or less standardized wreaths of honor as being madw of laurel.
But in the modern Olympic game it's olive. 2,563 olive wreaths and
bouquets for the Olympics and 2,960 for the Paralympics are being
donated by Interflora.

Lorenzo L. Love
http://home.thegrid.net/~lllove

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”
Cicero