DECIDUOUS TREES. 411 



THE CATALPA BANGEI is still more dwarfish, being a shrub 

 three to five feet high. The flowers are in clusters a foot long. 

 What has been said about protection for our native catalpa at the 

 north, applies with still more force to these imported sorts. We 

 believe that in a deep dry warm soil they will prove hardy in the 

 northern States, if protected until their roots have had time to become 

 established below the ordinary freezing of the earth. Yet we would 

 not omit late autumn mulching and some covering for the tops 

 until they are so large that it cannot conveniently be done. 



Fro. 130. 



THE SASSAFRAS. Laurus sassafras. 



This is the only quite hardy species of the beautiful laurel 

 family, so highly prized for their abundant glossy foliage in the 

 southern States, (there known as bay trees) ; and interesting as 

 the only representative in the northern States of the noble laurel 

 or bay, whose leaves have always been symbols of victory, and 

 endless themes for poetical allusions. It is also allied by family 

 ties to those two most aromatic trees, the camphor tree of Japan, 

 and the cinnamon tree of Ceylon, both of which are species of lau- 

 rel. Though the sassafras grows wild all over the country wherever 



