5i6 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



officinale. The female flowers have twelve staminodes in three rows of six, three, 

 and three ; only six staminodes in two rows of three each occurring in the American 

 species. 



There is a tree of this species, lo feet high, growing in the Coombe Wood 

 nursery, which was raised from seed sent by Wilson in 1900. It has made 

 wonderful growth during the past summer, and is very handsome. It differs from the 

 American species in having glabrous non-ciliate leaves, which are very lustrous on 

 the upper surface ; and the young branchlets are also devoid of pubescence. 



SASSAFRAS OFFICINALE, Sassafras 



Sassafras officinale, Nees ab Esenbeck u. Ebermaier, loc. cit. ; Bentley and Trimen, Medicinal 



Plants, iii. 220 (1880). 

 Scusafras Sassafras, Karsten, Pharm. Med. Bot. 505 (1882); Sargent, Silva N. Amer. vii. 17, 



tt. 304, 305 (1895), and Trees N. Amer. 337 (1905). 

 Sassafras variifolium, O. Kuntze, Rev. Gen. PI. ii. 574 (1891); Sargent, in Bot. Gazette, xliv. 



226(1907). 

 Laurus Sassafras, Linnaeus, Sp. PI. 371 (1753); Loudon, Ard. et Frut. Brit. iii. 1301 (1838). 



A tree, attaining in America 90 feet in height and 18 feet in girth. Bark,' 

 according to Sargent, dark red-brown, deeply and irregularly divided into broad 

 scaly ridges. Young shoots green or reddish, pubescent when young, becoming 

 glabrous, remaining green in the second year. Leaves (Plate 199, Fig. 5) deciduous, 

 entire, or two- to three-lobed ; the entire leaves oval with an obtuse apex and 

 cuneate base ; the others obovate, with a large triangular or oblong lobe on one or 

 both sides, directed forwards and outwards ; margin entire or repand, ciliate ; upper 

 surface dark green with a scattered short pubescence ; lower surface pale with a 

 long pubescence, often falling by the end of summer ; petiole, i to 2 inches long, 

 pubescent. The nerves are pinnate, the two lowest arising near the base of the 

 leaf, running nearly parallel with the margin, and ending in the lobes when these 

 are present. 



Berry ^ gives an account with illustrations of the extraordinary variation which 

 occurs in the leaves of wild trees growing in America. He has found leaves with 

 four, five, and even six lobes. 



Seedling 



Out of some seed gathered by Elwes at the Arnold Arboretum late in Septem- 

 ber and sown at Colesborne in October 1904, only one germinated in the following 

 June, and the seedling showed the following characters in August : The cotyledons 

 remain in the seed-case, the young stem emerging between them after the splitting 

 of the seed into two halves. The terete glabrous and reddish stem first gives off 

 alternately two minute scales, which are succeeded by true leaves ; the first, \ inch 

 long, arising i^ inch above the ground, is half-oval in shape, one side of the leaf 



' In cultivated trees in England the bark is grey and fissured into longitudinal narrow ridges. 

 ^ Bot. Gazette, xxxiv. 426 (1902). 



