Yellow and Orange 



sandy deserts and live in marshes instead. Country people some- 

 times rob the birds of the acid berries to make preserves. The 

 wood furnishes a yellow dye. 



Curiously enough it is the European barberry that is the com- 

 mon species here. The American Barberry {B. Canadensis), a 

 lower shrub, with dark reddish-brown twigs; its leaves more 

 distantly toothed; its flowers, and consequently its berries, in 

 smaller clusters, keeps almost exclusively to the woods in the 

 Alleghany region and in the southwest, in spite of its specific 

 name. 



Spice-bush; Benjamin-bush; Wild Allspice; 

 Fever-bush 



{Ben:{om Ben:{^om) Laurel family 



{Under a Benzoin of Gray) 



Flowers — Before the leaves, lemon yellow, fragrant, small, in clus- 

 ters close to the slender, brittle twigs. Six petal-like sepals .; 

 sterile flowers with 9 stamens in ^ series ; fertile flowers 

 with a round ovary encircled by abortive stamens. Stem : A 

 smooth shrub 4 to 20 ft. tall. Leaves : Alternate, entire, ova^ 

 or elliptic, 2 to 5 in. long. Fruit : Oblong, red, berry-like 

 drupes. 



Preferred Habitat— V^6\%\ woodlands, thickets, beside streams. 



Flowering Season — March — May. 



Distribution — Central New England, Ontario, and Michigan, south- 

 ward to Carolina and Kansas. 



Even before the scaly catkins on the alders become yellow, 

 or the silvery velvet pussy willows expand to welcome the ear- 

 liest bees that fly, this leafless bush breathes a faint spicy frag- 

 rance in the bleak gray woods. Its only rivals among the 

 shrubbery, the service-berry and its twin sister the shad-bush, 

 have scarcely had the temerity to burst into bloom when the little 

 clusters of lemon-yellow flowers, cuddled close to the naked 

 branches, give us our first delightful spring surprise. All the 

 favor they ask of the few insects then flying is that they shall 

 transfer the pollen from the sterile to the fertile flowers as a rec- 

 ompense for the early feast spread. Inasmuch as no single 

 blossom contains both stamens and pistil, little wonder the flowers 

 should woo with color and fragrance the guests- on whose min- 

 istrations the continuance of the species absolutely depends. 

 Later, when the leaves appear, we may know as soon as we 

 crush them in the hand that the aromatic sassafras is next of kin. 



297 



