LAURACEAE 181 



Persea pubescens (Pursh) Sarg. (P. Caroliiieiisis politstris 

 (Raf.) Chapm.) Red Bay. 



Usually a smaller tree than the preceding. Rarelv large 

 enough for saw timber, and often little more than a shrub. Dif- 

 fers otherwise chiefly in having the leaves rusty-pubescent Ijelow. 

 on the veins and petioles. These differences would seem unim- 

 portant, but for the fact that the ranges and habitats of the two 

 species are quite different. 



Both species are occasionally cultivated for ornament, and the 

 leaves are sometimes dried and used for flavoring soup. 



P. pitbcscciis grows in wet woods and non-alluvial and es- 

 tuarine swamps, mostly in places where less than 5% of the area 

 was cultivated in cotton in 1880. It is less common in Alabama 

 thari farther east, where the summers are wetter. 



4. Along branches on the southeast slope of the Blue Ridge. Clav 

 County. (See Torreya 10:220-221. 1910.) 



5. Along branches near Coosa River. Chilton County. 



6A. About 2 miles south and 18 miles southeast of Tuscaloosa. 

 6B. Spring-head in gravelly hills near Lock 14, Tuscaloosa County. 

 Also in Autauga County, 

 lot:. Dale County." 

 low. Sumter County. 



12. Geneva County. 



13. Washington. Mobile. Baldwin and Escambia Counties. 



14. Common in lower part of Mobile delta. 



15. Xear Orange Beach, Baldwin County. 



SASSAFRAS, Xees & Ebermaier. Sassafras. 



S. variifolium (Sal.) Kuntze. {S. officinale. Xees) 



(Figs. 48, 49) 



This well-known plant is remarkably variable in size. In its 

 natural home in the forests it is a slender tree, seldom more than 

 a foot in diameter and forty feet tall. But when protected from 

 competition, either by having the surrounding trees cut away, or 

 by being planted by birds or man along a roadside or in a field, it 

 may become much larger. Specimens two or three feet in diameter 

 have been reported from several eastern states, and the largest one 

 known to the writer (shown in the accompanying illustrations) is 

 in Tuscalfjosa. But the commonest form at the present time is a 

 shrub or small tree which forms small thickets in fields not re- 

 cently cultivated, or grows along fences at the edges of fields ; and 



