STUDIES OF TREES IN WINTER 



cious, aromatic taste and fragrance when the 

 twigs are broken are most unusual. The 

 branches often have a curious spirally twisted 

 appearance, a corkscrew effect, which with the 

 rough bark of the trunk give the tree an 

 ancient weather-beaten aspect when it is com- 

 paratively young. The sassafras was one of the 

 first American trees which became known in 

 Europe. In the middle of the sixteenth century 

 the French in Florida were told by the Indians 

 about its curative properties, and from that time 

 it was sought after, sassafras roots having 

 formed a part of the first cargo exported from 

 Massachusetts. J. C. Loudon, an English 

 writer on trees sixty years ago, had an original 

 theory, that the discovery of America was 

 largely due to the sassafras. "It was its 

 strong fragrance smelt by Columbus," he says, 

 in the third volume of his " Arboretum," " that 

 encouraged him to persevere when his crew 

 mutinied, and enabled him to convince them 

 that land was near at hand." 



Thoreau in his walks through the winter 

 woods about Concord in February says : " When 

 I break off a twig of green-barked sassafras, 

 as I am going through the woods now, and 

 smell it, I am startled to find it as fragrant as 

 in summer. It is an importation of all the 

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