Myrtlewood (Umbellularia californica) is a tree with fragrant evergreen leaves that grows in southwestern Oregon and northwestern California. Its lumber is notable for beautiful figuring and coloration, and since the 19th century, myrtlewood items have been the South Coast’s signature souvenir.

Today, U.S. Highway 101 is home to many businesses that sell myrtlewood lumber and slabs as well as finished myrtlewood furniture and decorative items. About 500,000 board feet of myrtlewood are processed each year.

Our myrtlewood, also known as California bay laurel, is no relation to Myrtus communis, the myrtle mentioned in Isaiah 55:13 as a useful and beautiful species — “Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree.” And it’s only a cousin of Laurus nobilis, the fragrant “green bay tree” that the wicked flourish like in Psalm 37:35.

Nevertheless, some myrtlewood gift shops perpetuate the canard that sailors of Sir Francis Drake’s Pacific expedition planted myrtlewood seeds from the Holy Land when they visited the California coast in 1579.

It takes 150 years for a myrtlewood tree to reach 16 inches in diameter. Oregon’s largest myrtlewood tree is at the end of the Myrtle Tree Trail about 10 miles east of Gold Beach. The Myrtlewood Factory Showroom in Hauser, started in 1911, claims to be the oldest surviving myrtlewood manufacturer.