LAURACKffi. 



8ILVA OF NORTE AMERICA. 



17 



SASSAFRAS SASSAFRAS. 



Sassafras. 



Sassafras Sassafras, Karsten, Pharm,.-Med. Bot. 605 Tetranthera albida, Sprengel, Syst. ii. 267 (1825). 



(1882) 



Sudworth, Garden and Forest, iv. 166. 



Laurus Sassafras, Linnaeus, Spec. 371 (1753). — Miller 



Diet. ed. 8, No. 7. 



"Wangenheim, Bes 

 Holz. 82. t. 27. \ 



Roi, Harhk. Ba 

 Nordavi. Holz 

 Marshall. Arh 



Nordam 



Castiglioni, Viag. negli Stati Uniti, ii. 273. — Walter, Fl. 

 Car. 134. — Willdenow, Berl. Ba^imz. 166 ; Spec. ii. pt. 

 i. 485 ; Enum. 435. — Lamarck, Diet. iii. 454. — Abbot, 

 Insects of Georgia, i. t. 11. — Nouveau Duhamel, ii. 



115, t. 34. 



Michaux. 1 



Persea Sassafras, Sprengel, Syst. ii. 270 (1825). — Schniz- 



lein. Icon. t. 106, f . 15-23. 

 Sassafras officinale, Nees ab Esenbeck & Ebermaier, 

 Handb. Med. -P harm. Bot. i. 418 (1830). — C. G. Nees 

 ab Esenbeck, Syst. Laur. 488. — Dietrich, Syn. ii. 



1357. 



Spach, Hist. V6g. x. 503. — Torrey, Fl. If. Y. 

 ii. 158. — Darlington, Fl. Cestr. ed. 3, 251. — Curtis, 

 Hep. Geolog. Surv. N. Car. 1860, iii. 63. — Chapman, Fl. 



394. 



Meisner, De Candolle Prodr. xv. pt. i. 171. 



Handb 



Hist. 



Persoon, Syn. i. 450. 

 Du Mont de Coun 



Bot. Cult. ed. 2, ii. 430. — Titf ord, Hort. Bot. Am. 



130. 



Michaux, f. Hist 



Pursh, 



Fl. Am. Sept. i. 277. — Bigelow, Fl. Boston. 97. 

 Rafinesque, FL Ludovic. 25. — Nuttall, Gen. i. 259; 



Sylva, i. 88. — Elliott, Sk. i. 464. 



Koch, Dendr. ii. 365. — Emerson, Trees Mass. ed. 2, ii. 

 359, t. — Ridgway, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. 1882, 70. 

 Lauche Deutsche Dendr. 357, f . 138. — Sargent, Forest 

 Trees N. Am. 10th Census U. S. ix. 119. — Mez, Jahrb. 

 Konig. Bot. Gart. 484 (Lauracece Americance Monog.). 

 Watson & Coulter, Gray's Man. ed. 6, 447. — Coulter, 

 Contrih. U. S. Nat. Herb. ii. 383 {Man. PI. W. Texas). 



Hilaire, Sassafras albidura, C. G. Nees ab Esenbeck, Syst. Laur. 



Traite des Arbres, i. t. 95. — Audubon, Birds, t. 144. 

 Laiirus variifolia, Salisbury, Prodr. 344 (1796). 

 Laurus diversifolia, Stokes, Bot. Mat. Med. ii. 426 



(1812). 



Laurus albida, Nuttall, Gen. i. 259 (1818). 



490 (1836). 

 Sassafras variifoUum, Otto Kuntze, Rev. Gen. PL ii. 

 574 (1891). — Koehne, Deutsche Dendr. 172. — Dippel, 

 Handb. Laubholzk. iii. 95. 



A 



occasionally eighty or ninety feet in height^ with a trunk sometimes nearly six feet 



diameter, and short stout more or less contorted branches which spread almost at right angles from the 



trunk, forming a narrow usually flat-topped head; frequently 



than forty or fifty feet in 



height, and at the north generally smaller and often shrubby. The bark of the trunk is sometimes an 

 inch and a half in thickness, dark red-brown, and deeply and irregularly divided into broad flat ridges 

 separating into thick appressed scales on the surface. The branchlets, when they first appear, are light 



yeUow-green and coated with pale pubes 



they soon become glabrous, bright green, and 



d at the end of two or three years gradually 



reddish brown, and begin to show the shallow 



fissures which divide the thin bark of the older branches and young stems. The leaves are four 



inches long and 



four inches wide, and are borne on petioles three quarters of an inch to an inch 



and a half in length ; in the autumn they turn to delicate shades of yellow or of orange more or less 

 tinged with red. The flowers are produced in racemes about two inches long and a third of an inch 

 across when fully expanded. The fruits ripen in September or October, and are a third of an inch 

 long and raised on stalks an inch and a half to two inches in length ; when ripe they separate from the 

 thick calyx-lobes which, with the stalks of the fruit-clusters, remain on the branches until the beginning 

 of winter. Exceedingly abundant in some years, the fruit of the Sassafras is generally produced rather 

 sparingly, and is usually devoured by birds as soon as it begins to assume its brilliant colors. 



Sassafras Sassafras is distributed from eastern Massachusetts through southern Vermont 



to 



southern Ontario ^ and central Michigan, southeastern Iowa, eastern Kansas and the Indian Territory, 

 and southward to central Florida and the valley of the Brazos River in Texas. 



42 



1879-80 



Macoun, Cat Can. PL 419. 



