CHAPTER XXIV 



Sassafras, Spice-bush and Bay 



The sassafras, spice-bush and bay belong to a family, the Laura- 

 ceae, that is mainly tropical in its modern distribution and which 

 contains over 1000 species many of which are valuable timber trees 

 in the tropics or yield camphor, cinnamon, alligator pears, and 

 other less well known articles of commerce. Very few members 

 of the family are found in the Temperate Zone and it is especially 

 well represented at the present time in northern South America. 



THE sassafras 



None of our native trees surpass the sassafras in the personal 

 interest that it arouses. Many of my readers are familiar with it 

 and have noticed the sometimes mitten-Hke shape of some of its 

 leaves, or know the fragrant root, but most of them I suspect think 

 of the sassfras as a bush or small tree, and yet it frequently reaches 

 a height of 125 feet and occasionally a trunk diameter of 7 feet. 

 The sassafras is not uncommon in southern New England, and I 

 have a tree on my place in eastern Connecticut some 90 feet tall 

 and with a trunk a foot in diameter. This tree always calls up 

 memories of the tropics for the dark green leaves are massed toward 

 the ends of the branches in a way characteristic of many of its 

 tropical relatives, and its whole appearance seems exotic, and sug- 

 gestive of the Spanish Main rather than staid old New England. 

 In lieu of gold or precious stones Captain John Smith sent the first 

 ship back to old England loaded with sassafras, and this was, so 

 far as I know the first and last incursion of the sassafras in any 

 large way into the commerce of the world, although the Choctaw 

 Indians are said to make a soup flavor from its leaves, and the 

 aromatic principle, especially of the roots, furnishes a mild aromatic 

 stimulant, and yields upon distillation oil of sassafras, sparingly 

 used in perfumery and soapmaking. 



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