The plants of middle earth

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Now I would understand if there was wild thyme and sage growing around (though not why Sam assumes Gollum would know what they looked like) but bay would be lot more unsual to find. Bay laurel requires a subtropical or at least Mediterean climate to grow well. Ithillien would have to be a fairly warm country to expect to find bays there

In fact a Mediterranean climate was exactly what Tolkien intended; His description of Ithilien includes not only such plants as bay laurel, but also tamarisk and terebinth. Indeed, if you take Hobbiton to be at the latitude of Oxford, then Osgiliath is roughly at that of Tuscany (as he pointed out himself). After a vacation in Italy he wrote a letter referring to his return from Gondor!

[Alfirin]

I was reading another post and much talk was made of longbows. This leads me to a new question to post does Middle Earth contain yew trees? We know that it has beeches, ashes, willows, oaks, hollys etc. along with a lot of trees now long gone (mallorn, lebethron, etc.) But the question is can one assume that all trees native to Great Britan and europe in or times were present in Middle earth whether mentioned (implcitly or not), or are there actually trees we have that they didn't?

[Alfirin]

I know this thread is postively ancient by now, but I realized that there was one more thing to say with regards to my Aethelas arguments. In the time since I wrote it, I have discovered that there are mints with very long, grass like leaves. The one that really springs to mind (mostly becuse I grew it once) is Habek Mint Mentha longifolia (In England I believe it is called horsemint). I'm not saying this is Athelas but at least it does sew up that particular loophole.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Alfirin

I was reading another post and much talk was made of longbows. This leads me to a new question to post does Middle Earth contain yew trees? We know that it has beeches, ashes, willows, oaks, hollys etc. along with a lot of trees now long gone (mallorn, lebethron, etc.) But the question is can one assume that all trees native to Great Britan and europe in or times were present in Middle earth whether mentioned (implcitly or not), or are there actually trees we have that they didn't?

Yews are named directly in the poem "Kortirion Among the Trees", from "Cottage of Lost Play", BoLT 1.

[Galin]

Add, just for another example...

to bend whose bow, Balthronding named,
that the black yewtree once bore of yore

From the Lay of the Children of Hurin

[Alfirin]

Yes I found out about the yews in the time between when I wrote the question and now. I probably should have mentioned that.