XII. 1. THE SASSAFRAS TREE. 319 
The stamens are as numerous as the divisions of the flower- 
cup, and opposite them, or two, three, four, five or six times as 
numerous. When there are more than three rows, the inner 
ones are sterile. ‘The anthers open by valves, which curve up- 
wards. The fruit is a one-seeded berry or a drupe, usually 
supported by a thickened, club-shaped stalk. 
The only genera found in this State, are the Sassafras and 
the Spice Bush or Fever Bush, Benzoin; the former a tree, the 
latter a shrub. Both have six-parted yellowish flowers with 
nine stamens, which are all fertile in the male flowers; the fe- 
male, six sterile ones. 
The Sassafras has its anthers opening with four valves, and 
its fruit borne on a stem thickened and fleshy at the extremity. 
The Spice Bush has anthers with only two valves, and its 
fruit-stallk not fleshy at the extremity. 
XII. 1. THE SASSAFRAS TREE. SASSAFRAS 
OFFICINALEH. Nees Von Esenbeck. 
Figured in Audubon’s Birds, II, Plate 144; in Michaux, Sylva, Plate 81; 
Bigelow’s Medical Botany, II, Plate 35. 
The sassafras, in this State, rarely reaches thirty feet in height 
and afoot in diameter. I have, however, measured some which 
were forty or fifty feet high and nearly two feet in diameter. 
The old tree is a striking but not a beautiful object, at least 
when the trunk is visible, which is rarely erect, but usually 
bending upwards, and sometimes crooked. The bark, on old 
stems, is of a reddish ash color, deeply and irregularly cracked, 
with the sides of the furrows striated with black and gray 
lines, showing the annual layers. The color of the interior 
of the bark is dark red, like some kinds of cinnamon. The 
branches are numerous, bare and crooked. The young tree is 
often beautiful, from the rich color of the luxuriant foliage and 
the recent shoots; and on young and old trees, the head is 
broad, round and finely tufted. The living bark is commonly 
free from most kinds of lichens, but an occasional dead branch 
will be found covered with Lecanoras and Lecideas, and patches 
of common and golden-eyed Parmelias. On young trees, the 
