16 Rhodora [JANUARY 
Sassafras L.) and S. albidum (based upon * Evosmus albida Nutt." 
and Rafinesque! said that there are two species of Sassafras, "8. 
rubra and albida once blended in Laurus sassafras," recent treatments 
fail to take note of the differences. 
Whether or not the two varieties have really different ranges it is 
not now possible to tell, but, judging from the material at hand, it 
would seem, as already indicated, that the pubescent extreme is more 
widely distributed over the country but in New England is the only 
form found in the sandy coastal region of Cape Cod, Nantucket and 
Rhode Island; while the smooth extreme is chiefly a tree of the more 
upland regions and extends from western New England to the Carolina 
mountains. 
The glabrous or glabrate variety should be called:— 
SASSAFRAS VARIIFOLIUM (Salisb.) Ktze. var. albidum (Nutt.), 
n. comb. Laurus (Euosmus) albida Nutt. Gen. i. 259 (1818). Tetran- 
thera albida Spreng. Syst. ii. 267 (1825). Evosmus albida “Nutt” 
acc. to Spreng. l. c. as synonym (1825); Nees, Syst. Laur. 490 as syno- 
nym (1836); Steudel, Nom. ed. 2, 622 (1840). S. albidum Nees, l. c. 
(1836); Raf. Sylva Tell. 134 (1838). Euosmus albida “Nutt” acc. 
to Jackson, Ind. Kew. i. fase 2, 914 (1893). 
Whether the stronger flavor and white roots which Nuttall definitely 
ascribed to var. albidum are constant characters concomitant with the 
glabrous and glaucous twigs and glabrous foliage cannot now be de- 
termined, but a doubt is cast upon this point by the acute Kentuckian, 
John Uri Lloyd, who in his most interesting discussion of the history 
and uses of Sassafras says: 
“The author’s boyhood was spent in the country, in Kentucky, 
where sassafras abounds... .. 
Kentuckians claim that there are two varieties of sassafras, the red 
sassafras and the white, distinguished only by the bark. The white 
sassafras is not so aromatic and is bitter to the taste, and they use 
only the red bark.” ? 
A somewhat complex and academic nomenclatorial question arises 
from Nuttall’s careless use of the initial “E,” in referring to some 
species of Laurus which he placed in the subgenus Euosmus. In the 
original publication, in the Genera, all the species were numbered 
consecutively under Laurus but some of those which Nuttall placed 
1 Raf. Sylva Tell. 134 (1838). 
2 J. U. Lloyd, Bull. Lloyd. Libr. no. xviii. 77, 78 (1911). 
