The Laurels and the Sassafras 



yokes. Bark of roots used as medicinal tea. Oil of bark used 

 to flavour medicines. Valuable ornamental for its berries and 

 brilliant autumn colouring. Attracts birds. 



Who has not nibbled the dainty green buds of sassafras in 

 winter, or dug at the roots for a bit of their aromatic bark? Or 

 who has not searched among the leaves for "mittens"? Surely 

 they are people whose youth was spent in regions that knew not 

 this little tree of the fence corners and woodland borders. And 

 they have missed something very much worth while out of their 

 childhood. 



Then there is the great green caterpillar with the Cyclopean 

 black eye transfixing the culprit who dares disturb him on the 

 soft silk mattress he has spun for himself on a sassafras leaf. 

 When he is hung up like a mummy we have dared to carry him 

 home, to learn that the "eye" is only a big black spot made to 

 scare away birds, no doubt, which are looking for worms. Did 

 you never see the glorious swallow-tail butterfly that comes out of 

 that plump chrysalis in a day or two? Then you have, indeed, 

 missed another joy, for no tiger of the jungle is more richly 

 banded with black and yellow than this ranger of the meadows; 

 in form and colouring and motions he is as beautiful as the flowers 

 that supply him with nectar. 



But there is the sassafras tree. When the butterfly is still 

 in its tiny green eggshell, hidden by a provident mother in plain 

 sight on the face of an opening leaf, the delicate greenish yellow 

 flowers come out. The starry calyxes are alike on all the trees. 

 But the stamens are all on one tree, nine in each flower, prominent, 

 with bunchy glands at the bases of the inner ones. Plainly 

 these flowers have pollen making for their duty. The pistillate 

 flowers, with a row of abortive stamens at the base of the central 

 style, grow in numbers on another tree. Here in autumn come 

 the birds, even before the blue berries have softened on their 

 coral pedestals. To leave them till they ripen would be to lose 

 them to some other bird. 



The glory of the autumn foliage of the sassafras is like the 

 glory of a sunset all mingled with purple and red and gold. 

 The three forms of leaves that fascinated us in summer time are 

 here yet, but the shining treetop is the unit now, and we do not 

 look for individual leaves. 



The wood of sassafras is light and tough, and makes good 



268 



