Plant · P-647

Bay Rum Tree

Pimenta racemosa

Bay Rum Tree is a columnar evergreen grown for its aromatic leaves, which yield an essential oil used in perfumes, soaps, and the classic hair tonic and toilet water it is named for when distilled in rum. Orchard growers keep it topped at 3 to 5 m so the leaves stay within reach, stripping the tree annually and letting it coppice back from the stump if damaged - a working system that lets it pay before it ever reaches flowering size, unlike most tropical spice trees. It cannot take a hard freeze at all, with leaves damaged at -1 C and limbs killed at -3 C, though it is more drought-tolerant than most humid-tropical spice trees once established. The dried berries are used as a spice, but sources disagree on whether the fruit and oil are safe to eat, so any internal use is best treated as unsettled.