DENDROLOGY. 197 



1800 miles, this tree is sufficiently multiplied to be ranked among 

 the most common trees. It is seen growing on lands of every 

 description, from the dry and gravelly to the most moist and 

 fertile, with the exception of such as are arid and sandy to 

 excess, like the pine-barrens of the Southern States : neither is 

 it found in the swamps that border the rivers by which these 

 states are watered. 



This tree attains its greatest developement on the declivities 

 which skirt the swamps, and such as sustain the luxuriant forests 

 of Kentucky and West Tennessee, where it arrives to the height 

 of 50 or 60 feet, with a proportionate diameter. The bark 

 which covers old trees is of a grayish color and is chapped into 

 deep cracks. On cutting into it, it exhibits a dark dull red, a 

 good deal resembling the color of the Peruvian bark. The. bark 

 of the young branches is smooth and of a beautiful green color. 

 The old trees give birth to hundreds of shoots which spring up 

 at little distances, but which rarely rise higher than six or eight 

 feet. The leaves of the sassafras are four or five inches in 

 length, alternate, and petiolated. At their unfolding in the spring 

 they are downy and of a tender texture. TKey are of different 

 shapes upon the same tree, being sometimes oval and entire, and 

 sometimes divided into lobes, which are generally three in 

 number, and which are rounded at the summit. The lobed 

 leaves are the most numerous and are situated on the upper part 

 of the tree. About New York and Philadelphia this tree is in 

 full bloom in the beginning of May, and six weeks earlier in 

 South Carolina. The flowers unfold before the leaves, and 

 appear in small clusters at the end of the last year's shoots. 

 They are of a greenish-yellow hue, and are but slightly odoriferous. 

 In this species of laurel the sexes are confined to different stocks. 

 The fruit or seed is of an oval form and of a deep blue color, 

 and is contained in small, bright, red cups, supported by peduncles 

 from one to two inches in length. These seeds, when ripe, are 

 eagerly devoured by the birds, and soon disappear from the tree. 



The wood of this tree is not strong, and branches of consider- 

 able size may be broken with a slight effort. In the young tree 

 the wood is white ; in those which exceed fifteen or eighteen 



