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SASSAFRAS. 
Enneandria monogynia. Linn. Laurineæ. Jussi 
Laurus sassafras. L. foliis deciduis, integris trilobisque ; fioribus dioicis. 
The Sassafras, on account of its medicinal virtues, was among the first 
trees of America which became known to the Europeans. 
Monardes, in 1549, and after him, Clusius, who have written on the 
foreign vegetables employed in medicine, treat at length of the uses of its 
wood in certain diseases. Hernandes, in his History of the Plants of New 
Mexico, published in 1638, mentions the Sassafras among the trees of the 
province of Mechoacan ; but I doubt whether it is as common in that part 
of North America as in the regions which lie east of the Mississippi. 
In the United States, the neighborhood of Portsmouth in New Hamp- 
shire, in the latitude of 43°, may be assumed as one of the extreme points 
at which it is found toward the north-east: in the Western Country, it is 
met with one degree further north. But in these latitudes it is only a tall 
shrub, rarely exceeding 15 or 20 feet in height. A few degrees further 
south, in the neighborhood of New York and Philadelphia, it grows to the 
height of 40 or 50 feet, and attains a still loftier stature in some parts of 
Virginia, the Carolinas, and the Floridas, as w T ell as in the Western States 
and in Upper and Lowmr Louisiana. It is abundant throughout these coun- 
tries, except in the mountainous districts of the Alleghanies, by which they 
are divided, where it appears to be comparatively rare. In fine, from Bos- 
ton to the banks of the Mississippi, and from the shores of the Ocean in 
Virginia to the remotest wilds of Upper Louisiana beyond' the Missouri, 
comprising an extent in each direction of more than 1800 miles, the Sas- 
safras is sufficiently multiplied to be ranked among the most common trees. 
It is seen growing on lands of every description, from the dry and gravelly 
to the moist and fertile, with the exception of such as are arid and sandy 
to excess, like the pine-barrens of the Southern States : neither is it found 
in the swamps that border the rivers by which these States are watered. 
In the low, maritime parts of Virginia, of the two Carolinas and of 
Georgia, the Sassafras is observed to prefer plantations and soils which 
have been exhausted by cultivation and abandoned. The old trees give 
birth to hundreds of shoots, which spring from the earth at little distances, 
but which rarely rise higher than 6 or 8 feet. Though this tree is common 
on poor lands, and blooms and matures its seed at the height of 15 or 20 
feet, yet it is never of very ample dimensions, except in fertile soils, such 
