192 THE LAUREL FAMILY. 



then is beginning to sl:iovv colour, altliough in a subtle, mysterious way. 

 Tips of the red maple have already tinted their grim bearers with crimson 

 and a shower of white is upheld by the June berry. It is the time of ex- 

 pectancy ; the time when few plants sleep. Later when the leaves of the 

 spice bush unfold they are found, if crushed, to give out an odour which 

 reminds us of its relative the sassafras, and likewise haye in war times of 

 this country been used as a substitute for tea. When the berries are ripe, 

 after perhaps a flourishing brood of cat birds has been reared in the boughs, 

 housewives wise in their generation gather them also to powder and use as 

 a spice. 



B. inelisscBfbUum^ hairy spice-bush while very similar to the more common 

 species, has on its young buds, the twigs and underside of the leaves, a thick 

 pubescence. It grows in wet soil and swamps from North Carolina south- 

 ward and blooms as early as February. 



RED BAY. ISABELLA=WOOD. 



Per sea Borboiiia. 



FAMILY SHAPE HEIGHT RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Laurel. Oval^ dense croivn. 20-6^ feet. Texas and Florida to Vi^-ginia May. 



and 7iorthward. Fruit: September. 



Bark: reddish; young twigs greyish, puberulent or nearly glabrous. Leaves: 

 alternate; oblong or ol)long lanceolate, pointed at the apex and narrowed at the 

 base; entire; lustrous; bright green; glabrous above at maturity, paler underneath; 

 coriaceous; evergreen. Flcnvers: yellow; j^erfect; a few growing in panicles on 

 long, axillary and closely pubescent peduncles. 6rt/j'jr.- six-parted, imbricated in 

 the bud, the segments either equal or unequal. Corolla: none. Stamens: twelve, 

 the outer ones anther-bearing. Berries: globose; dark blue. 



The rose coloured wood of the red bay is very beautiful, as it takes a most 

 brilliant polish and the best pieces of it have something of the shimmering 

 look of watered satin. Long before mahogany became so generally used it 

 was much sought for, and some exquisite pieces of furniture made from it 

 are still to be found among the older inhabitants of the south. Its leaves 

 have an aromatic fragrance much like sassafras. They could, it is thought, 

 be made to yield a substance similar to that used in the bay rum of the 

 West Indies. 



P. piibescens, swamp bay grows near the coast from Mississippi and Florida 

 to Virginia. It is a water-loving tree of at most, about thirty-five feet high 

 and having its parts, as its specific name would imply, covered with a dense, 

 brownish pubescence. In coming into bloom it is considerably later than 

 the red bay and its wood is orange-brown. 



