79 



Poet's Laurel ; and it is of little use to expect 

 it to flourish in poor soil, or when crowded. In 

 moist and mild parts of England, planted in 

 rich and deep soil, the Sassafras ought to attain 

 a good size. Its habit of growth is atfirst scanty 

 and straggling. It has a straight stem crowned 

 with sparse foliage in youth , gradually broaden- 

 ing into a beautiful head with dense foliage in 

 layers, from branches almost at right angles 

 with the trunk. 



Early in the spring the Sassafras is con- 

 spicuous forits clusters of small blossoms, light 

 yellow in colour, sometimes diecious and some- 

 times perfect, that appear before the leaves. The 

 scales of the winter-buds consist of three 

 outer ones that soon fall when their pro- 

 tective work is done. Four or five inner 

 scales begin to increase when the bud 

 opens. They are covered with fine silky 

 hairs, and form an involucre around the 

 flower-clusters. At first this involucre is 

 light yellow, but it gradually assumes a 

 bright red colour, a pretty contrast to the 

 yellow blossoms. When the young leaves 

 appear they are in beautiful shades of 

 amber, salmon, and sienna. The delicate 

 under surface of the foliage is covered with 

 lustrous silky hairs, and so fine is the tex- 

 ture of these young leaves that they are 

 translucent in effect under the influence 

 of the bright spring sunshine. When the 

 leaves mature they are a soft, warm, 

 medium green, showing their downy 

 under surfaces in every whiff" of wind. 

 The leaves are from 3 to 5 inches long, and 

 2 to 4 inches in width. Sometimes, as 

 though in caprice, a leaf will put forth 

 what resembles a thumb on one side, looking 

 like a mittened hand. Other leaves will put 

 forth, as it were, a thumb or finger on each 

 side of the main lobe ; and all three forms of 

 leaf are often found on the same twig. 



It is in the autumn that the Sassafras must 

 be seen if its beauty is to be fully appreciated. 

 The foliage hereabouts begins to colour in 

 October, and persists until late in November. 

 A copse of young Sassafras is then a fine har- 

 mony of colour, running the scale from ten- 

 derest citrine, amber, and old Madeira, to in- 

 tense orange and scarlet. The new growth 

 throughout the summer shows the same at- 

 tractive colouring as the young leaves in the 



spring. The fine blue berries, half an inch long, 

 and set in a bright red calyx, add much to the 

 beauty of itsautumn dress, but they aregreedi- 

 | ly devoured by the birds, and seldom remain 

 long upon the branches. Young trees fruit 

 sparsely or not at all. It is the large trees in rich 

 soil that one sometimes finds laden with fruit 

 and as fine a sight as our southern woodlands 

 present. I have seen trees thus laden, their 

 beauty enhanced by theVirginia Creeper cloth- 

 ing their trunks, running high up among their 

 branches,and flinging out their scarlet festoons 

 in high relief against the parti-coloured foli- 

 aee of the trees. The bark of the Sassafras is 



THE SASSAFRAS. 



LEAF, FLOWERS, AND FRUIT. 



roughly ridged, thick, and dark reddish- 

 brown. On small trees the bark is greyish, curi- 

 ously streaked and striped with dark brown, 

 while the young branches and twigs are green. 



Mr. Scott, an old authority on the trees of 

 America, writes thus of the Sassafras : — "The 

 crooked Sassafras of the woods, running up as 

 if uncertain what point in the heavens to aim 

 at, and at what height toput out its arms, seems 

 as unhappy there as a cultured citizen forced to 

 spend his life among the Comanches. But the 

 same tree in rich soil, and in the open sun, ex- 

 pands naturally into one of the most beautiful 

 heads of foliage among trees." He speaks of 

 it as the most neglected, considering its rare 



