BEVERAGE PLANTS 



much the same distribution is the common Spice- 

 wood, Wild Allspice, or Feverbush 1 (Lindera Ben- 

 zoin, Blume), a shrubby denizen of damp woods and 

 moist grounds, easily recognized in early spring by 

 the little bunches of honey-yellow flowers that stud 

 the branches before the leaves appear. The whole 

 bush is spicily fragrant, and a decoction of the twigs 

 makes another pleasant substitute for tea, at one 

 time particularly in vogue in the South. Dr. 

 Porcher states that during the Civil War soldiers 

 from the upper country in South Carolina serving 

 in the company of which he was surgeon, came into 

 camp fully supplied with Spicewood for making this 

 fragrant, aromatic beverage. Andre Michaux, a 

 French botanist who traveled afoot and horse-back 

 through much of the eastern United States when it 

 was still a wilderness, half starving by day and 

 sleeping on a deer-skin at night, has left in his jour- 

 nal the following record of the virtues of Spicewood 

 tea, served him at a pioneer's cabin: "I had 

 supped the previous evening [February 9, 1796] on 

 tea made from the shrub called Spicewood. A 

 handful of young twigs or branches is set to boil and 



i Also called Benjamin-bush, corrupted from benzoin, an aromatic 

 gum of the Orient which, however, is derived from quite another 

 family of plants. French-Canadians used to call the Spicewood, 

 poivrier, which means pepper plant. 



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