68 



PAPAVERACEAE (POPPY FAMILY) 



The pistillate flowers have 6 short rudiments of stamens and an 

 ovoid ovary. The fruit is a blue drupe borne on a club-shaped 

 pedicel. 



S. variifolium, SASSAFRAS. Trees 4-28 m. 

 high, with yellowish-green twigs, leaves ovate, 

 entire, or some of them 2 or 3 lobed. Fre- 

 quent in woods. April. 



BENZOIN 



A shrub with yellow flowers in almost 

 sessile umbel-like clusters, which appear 

 before the leaves. The clusters are com- 

 posed of smaller clusters each of 46 flowers and surrounded by an 

 involucre of 4 deciduous scales. Leaf buds scaly. Easily recog- 

 nized by the odor of its broken leaves, which resembles that of 

 benzoin, an oriental gum. 



B. aestivale, SPICE BUSH. The 

 flowers are polygamo-dioecious. The 

 fruit is a red drupe. The plant is 

 2-5 m. high, the leaves being oblong- 

 obovate, pale underneath. Damp 

 woods. March-April. 



Sassafras variifolium, 

 Sassafras. 



PAPAVERACEAE 



(POPPY FAMILY) 



Herbs with milky or colored 

 juice. Leaves alternate and with- 

 out stipules. Regular flowers with 

 the parts in twos or fours. Sepals 

 fugacious. Petals 4-12, spreading, Bens in acstivale ' fl Spice 



'. & "* f' inflorescence; b, flower 



imbricated and often crumpled in 



the buds, early deciduous. Stamens many and distinct. 



dry pod. Seeds numerous. 



bush. a, 

 c, leaf. 



Fruit a 



SANGUINARIA 



A low perennial. Its thick horizontal root-stalks have a red- 

 orange juice. They send up in earliest spring a palmate-lobed 



