Kim Ketchum, age 12$ of Salt Lake City, Utah, for his question:

Where does myrtle wood grow?

The true myrtle tree is a .shrub or small ornamental tree and very rare in the New World, where it grows only under careful garden cultivation. It is a glossy evergreen, a native of curtain Mediterranean lands. There, for countless generations, its beautiful mottled wood has been used in the finest of cabinetwork.

In the New World, our so called myrtle wood comes from the California laurel, or bay tree. This handsome tree may be 50 feet tall and it loves to grow in the deep canyons of California and often on the misty slopes under the giant redwood trees. This laurel., too, is a glossy evergreen and its wood is so much like that of the Mediterranean myrtle that we call it myrtle wood. Fine carpentry work brings nut a mottled, marble effect of light and dark browns tinged with olives, greens and yellows.