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laurel noun The mountain term for evergreen rhododendron (Rhododendron maximum and Rhododendron catawbiense), which in the Smokies grows profusely at elevations below 5000 feet and covers extensive tracts in thicket. [DARE labels this usage “chiefly Southern Appalachians, especially North Carolina]

1883 Zeigler and Grosscup Heart of Alleghanies 196 The arborescent kalmia and rhododendron, which grow along almost every mountain stream, have a practical use. The ivy and laurel, as they are locally called, attain, in some of the fertile coves, a diameter of three inches, and the roots are even larger. 1890 Carpenter Thunderhead Peak 142-43 There for the first time we saw the tangle of rhododendron which is called “laurel,” and forms a dense thicket along all the mountain streams. 1937 Hall Coll (Cades Cove TN) We have white laurels and red laurels here in the mountains. 1982 Ginns Snowbird Gravy 130 The laurel, the “rhododendron,” now they call it, won’t poison 'em, but it'll just starve 'em to death. It'll just cause 'em to vomit all their eating up all the time. But what we called “ivy,” what they call “laurel” now, it'd kill 'em dead. There was no way to save 'em when they'd eat a mess of it.