By Quillfiller
Shropshire,
United Kingdom 
Cherry Laurel? We recently moved to a property on a country estate in Shropshire, England with large areas of laurel planted in the mid to late 1800s. We would like to use the laurel wood as a sustainable fuel in our living room wood burning stove, but I haven't been able to determine whether or not it is the poisonous cherry variety which gives off cyanide gas if burned. I took photos (attached) of the flowers and attempted to match them up to the varieties I found online, but could still not come up with a definite match.
My wife has a good sense of smell and can't detect the almond smell which is supposedly characteristic of cherry laurel, saying it has more of a "herb" aroma - though no particularly strong smell.
Any ideas at all?
Thanks for your time,
Mark Walton
16 Aug, 2014
Answers
Thank you Bamboo for your speedy response and identification. I now feel more confident about burning just the laurel logs we have once they are decently seasoned - almost a year now.
16 Aug, 2014
That is definitely Prunus laurocerasus - but if you want to burn just the wood, not the leaves or seeds, and the wood is well seasoned, and you're burning it in a closed stove, there shouldn't be a problem with cyanide gas.
16 Aug, 2014