20 HOUGH'S AMERICAN WOODS. 



found in company with the Black Ash along streams and in swamps sub- 

 ject to inundation. 



.PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. Wood moderately heavy and hard, strong, 

 coarse-grained and compact; of a rich reddish-brown color and thin yel- 

 lowish-white sap-wood. Specific Gravity, 0.6251; Percentage of Ash, 

 0.26 ; Relative Approximate Fuel Value, 0. 6235 ; Coefficient of Elasticity, 

 81222 ; Modulus of Ruirture, 869 ; Resistance to Longitudinal Pressure, 

 435 ; Resistance to Indentation, 204 ; Weight of a Culic Foot in Pounds, 

 38.96. 



USES. This wood is used to some extent in the manufacture of agri- 

 cultural implements, and (as with the Black Ash) for interior finishing, 

 furniture, etc., and in rural districts for fence rails. 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES. None are known of this species. 



ORDER LAURACE.ZE: LAUREL FAMILY. 



Leaves alternate, simple, generally marked with pelucid dots and (as with the 

 bark) aromatic. Flowers in clusters; sepals 4-6; colored, slightly united at the base, 

 strongly imbricated in 2 rows in the bud; stamens definite with 2-4 celled anthers 

 which open by recurved lid-like valves; pistil solitary, free. 1-celled, 1-ovuled and 

 with single style. Fruit a drupe or berry with single suspended anatropous albu- 

 menless seed. Trees and shrubs. 



GENUS SASSAFRAS, NEES. 



Leaves deciduous and in fall turning to a buff or handsome yellow color, these and 

 the twigs very mucilaginous. Flowers dioecious, greenish-yellow, appearing before the 

 leaves in terminal corymbose racemes and furnished with linear bracts; calyx 6- 

 parted with spreading and equal lobes, deciduous. Sterile flowers with 9 stamens 

 at the base of the calyx in three rows, the inner row furnished with a pair of stalked 

 glands at the base of each; anthers 4-celled; ovary abortive. Fertile flower with 6 

 rudimentary and imperfect stamens; pistil with an ovoid acuminate ovary, short 

 styles and capitate stigma. Fruit an ovoid drupe blue and on a short, fleshy, reddish 

 pedicel. 



Trees. ("Sassafras" is from " salsafras" the Spanish for " saxifrage," ihe proper- 

 ties of which have been attributed to this.) 



32. SASSAFRAS OFFICINALE, NEES. 

 SASSAFRAS. 



Grer., Fenchellioltz. Fr., Laurier des Iroquois. Sp., Sasafras. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. Leaves glabrous (excepting when young) and of various 

 shapes, all more or less cuneate at the base, but some oval or ovate lanceolate and 

 entire, others 3-lobed and still others with a single lobe on one side, giving the 

 leaf the shape of a mitten. 



("' Officinale " is the Latin for " official " or " officinal."} 



This tree is characterized by the soft bark of the trunk being cleft 

 into prominent longitudinal ridges, of a brownish-gray color on the sur- 

 face but within of a reddish-brown. The bark of the twigs and young 

 shoots is of a delicate green. Every part of the tree possesses a pleasant 

 aromatic flavor and fragrance, but this is most conspicuous in the bark and 



