424 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 400. 



Fig;. 57. — Salix alba X lucida. — See page 423. 



I. A flijwerinp branch of the staniinate tree, natural size. 2. A staminate flower, enlarged. 3. A fruiting; branch, natural size. 

 5. Scales of tlie staminate and pistillate flowers, enlarged. 6. A sterile branch, natural size. 



4. A fruit, enlarged. 



its healthy and fragrant leaves in summer, make it most at- 

 tractive at every season. It is a tree of neat and individual 

 habit, with an average height in this latitude of about forty 

 feet, vi'ith stout, and often twisted, branches placed nearly 

 at right angles with the stem, so that the foliage lies in 

 strata and forms a rather flat head. In a full-grown tree 



the red-brown and deeply furrowed bark gives the trunk a 

 most picturesque appearance. The Sassafras ranges from 

 the shores of Massachusetts Bay to Florida and west be- 

 yond the Mississippi, and reaches its maximum size in 

 southern Arkansas and the Indian Territory, where trees 

 are not uncommon with trunks six or seven feet throusfh 



