amazing piece of poet's laurel!

Where is a grandchild who knows how to take panoramic photos when you need one?! I definitely needed one to take this picture, because I couldn't get the whole length of this 4.5 foot poet's laurel branch in the picture frame. I discovered it, laden with orange berries, outside this morning and couldn't resist picking it. Interestingly, it came from my least healthy of  my poet's laurel shrubs. Maybe the shrub put all its energy into this one long branch? Or maybe the whole shrub is dying and this was its last hurrah? Some plants do that--produce lots of seeds or berries when stressed just to make they'll leave offspring.