LAURACE^. 



8ILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



15 



Spanish physician Nicolas Monardes.^ Exaggerated ideas of the curative properties of Sassafras soon 



spread through Europe 3 ^ and extraordinary efforts were made to secure large supphes of the wood and 

 roots.^ 



Sassafras is little injured by insects/ and is not subject to serious fungal diseases.^ 



Sassafras was first used as a popular name by the French in Florida ; and when the genus^ which 



had been included by earlier botanists with Laurus, was distinguished by Nees ab Esenbeck he adopted 



Sassafras as its name. 



fol. 51, t. 



Sassafras arbor Monardi, Dalechamps, Hist Gen. PL 1786, f. 

 Plukenet, Phyt. t. 222, f. 6. 



Sassafras^ Hist. Med. tion of Captain Gosnold^s Voyage to the North part of Virginia^ 



begun the six-and-twentieth of March, Anno 42 Elizabethce Regince, 



— 1602, and delivered by Gabriel Archer, a gentleman in the said voyage 

 [Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc. ser. 3, viii. 77]); and eight years later 

 The Sassafras or Ague-tree, Gerarde, Herball, 1340, f . — Parkin- sassafras is mentioned among the articles to be sent home in the 



son, Theatr. 1606, f, —Jan de Laet, Nov. Orb. 216, t. 

 Arbor ex Florida Jiculneo folio, C. Bauhin, Pinax, 431. 

 Sassafras, sive Lignum Pavanum, J. Bauhin, Hist. PL i. 483, t. 

 De Sassafras, Jonston, Dendrographia, 218, t. 65, f . 



instructions of the English government to the colony of Virginia 

 (^Colonial Papers, i. No. 23). (See, also, the Historie of Travaile 

 into Virginia Britannia, by William Strachey, ed. Major, 129.) 

 During two centuries, at least, the wood and the bark of the 



" The Sassafras is ix, Medicinal Tree whose Bark & Leaves yield roots of the Sassafras-tree were considered valuable remedies for 

 a pleasant Smell : it profits in all Diseases of the Blood, and Liver, syphilis, rheumatism, and dropsy; but their specific medicinal prin- 

 particnlarly in all Venereal and Scorbutic Distempers.'' (^Carolina, ciples have been one after another disproved; and although sassa- 



or u Description of the Present State of thi 

 A. T. Gent, London, 1682.) 



Sassafras, Panckow, Herb. ed. Zorn, 361. 

 Lugd. Bat. 537. —Ray, Hist. PL ii. 1568. — Blackwell, ColL Stirp. 

 iii. t. 267. 



irmann 



fras is still sometimes used in Europe in combination with sarsapa- 

 rilla and guaiacum, in the United States it is now valued in medicine 

 only as a mild aromatic stimulant. 



The bark of the root contains it volatile oil, camphorous matter, 

 resin, wax, and a decomposed product of tannic acid to which the 

 Saxafras, Pomet, Hist. Gen. Drog. 113. name of sassafrid has been given. The volatile oil and tannic acid 



Cornus mas odorata, folio trifido, margine piano, Sassafras dicta, render it stimulant and astringent ; used as an adjuvant to more 



Plukenet, Aim. Bot. 120. — Catesby, Nat. Hist. Car. i. 55, t. 55. 

 MiUer, Diet. ed. 3, No. 5. 



Sassafras Arbor folio Ficulneo, Munting, Phyt. Cur. 5, t. 20. 



De Ligno Sassafras, Zorn, Botanolog. Med. 608. 



efficacious medicines, it improves their flavors, but excessive doses 

 have produced narcotic poisoning. (See U. S. Dispens. ed. 16, 

 1339.) 



^ The larffe handsome larvae of Pavilio Troilus. Linnseua. are 



Laurus flore ^ fructu remoto in eadem planta, foliis integris Sf tri" often abundant on the Sassafras, living on the leaves, which they 



lobis, Kramer, Tent. Bot. 141. 



partially fold together by silken threads to protect themselves. 



Cliff. 154 ; Mat 



Med 

 227. 



Clayton, Fl. Virgin. 62. 



Fl. Ley 



Novebor 



The larvse of Attacus Promethea, Harris, also feed on the leaves of 

 •odr» this tree, and in winter the cocoons may frequently be found hang- 

 Du- ing from the branches. A small moth, Gracilaria sassafraseHa^ 



hamel, Traite des Arbres, i. 350, t. 135, f. 7. — Trew, PL Ehret^ Chambers, in its larval stages is believed to mine within the young 

 334, t. 69, 70 ; Nov. Act. Phys. Med. Acad. Cces. Leopold Carol, ii. leaves, and later to roll them downwards. A number of other 



344 (Hist. Nat. Arb. Sassafi 



Salsafi 



species of insects which feed upon a variety of plants have occasion- 

 ally affected Sassafras, but it is not attacked by borers in the living 



Mas odorata, folio trifido 



wood. 



^fi 



Johann 



ist. Florida, 20. ^ The Sassafras is attacked by numerous fungi peculiar to this 



Neander published in Bremen a medi- host. A disease of frequent occurrence, causing circumscribed 



cal treatise devoted to the virtue of the Sassafras-tree and entitled brown spots on the leaves, is due to Phyllosticta Sassafras, Cooke, 



Sassafrasologia. I have been unable to examine a copy of the work, of which the mature condition is seldom seen ; and the imperfectly 



which, so far as I can discover, is not in any American library. 



known Rhytisma Sassafras, Schweinitz, covers them with thickened 



s One of the objects of the English expedition which, in 1602, black spots. The woody parts of the tree are attacked by several 

 made the earliest attempt to establish <* settlement on the coast of species of Pyrenomycetes ; these are most prevalent in the south- 

 New England was to obtain a supply of sassafras (see The Rela- ern part of the country. 



