82 
SASSAFRAS. 
as form the declivities which skirt the swamps, and sustain the luxuriant 
forests of Kentucky and West Tennessee. 
The leaves are 4 or 5 inches in length, alternate, and petiolated. At 
their unfolding in the spring, they are downy and of a tender texture. 
They are of different shapes upon the same tree, being sometimes oval and 
entire, and sometimes divided into lobes which are generally 3 in number, 
and rounded at the summit. The lobéd leaves are the most numerous and 
are situated on the upper part of the tree. 
About New York and Philadelphia, the Sassafras is in full bloom in the 
beginning of May, and six weeks earlier in South Carolina. The flowers 
unfold themselves before the leaves, and appear in small clusters at the end 
of the last year’s shoots. They are of a greenish yellow hue, and are but 
slightly odoriferous. In this species of Laurel the sexes are confined to 
different stocks. The fruit or seed is of an oval form and of a deep blue 
color, and is contained in small, bright red cups, supported by peduncles 
from 1 to 2 inches in length. These seeds, when ripe are eagerly devoured 
by the birds, and soon disappear from the tree. 
The bark which covers the trunk of an old Sassafras is of a grayish color, 
and is chapped into deep cracks. On cutting into it, it exhibits a dark 
dull red, a good deal resembling the color of the Peruvian bark. The 
bark of the young branches and suckers is smooth and of a beautiful green 
color. The wood of this tree is not strong, and branches of considerable 
size may be broken with a slight effort. In the young tree the wood is 
white ; in those which exceed 15 or 18 inches in diameter it is reddish and 
of a closer grain. It is not, however, in these respects to be compared 
with the Oak and the Hickory. Experience shows that this wood, stripped 
of its bark, resists for a considerable period the progress of decay ; and it 
is on this account employed for the posts and rails of rural fence. It is 
also sometimes used in the country for joists and rafters in houses built of 
wood. I have been informed that it is secure from the attacks of worms ; 
this advantage is attributed to its odor, which it preserves as long as it is 
sheltered from the sun and the rain. Bedsteads made of it are never 
infested by insects. But for these purposes the Sassafras wood is not in 
habitual use, and is only occasionally employed in this country : it is never 
seen exposed to sale in the lumber-yards of the large towns, and it appears 
incapable of ever becoming an article of great interest in the mechanical 
arts. For fuel, also, it is held in little esteem, and it is only in the cities 
of the Southern States, which are not, like those of the north, abundantly 
furnished with fuel, that it is brought into the market as wood of the third 
qualify. Its bark contains a great deal of air, and snaps while burning 
like that of the Chesnut. 
The medicinal properties of the Sassafras are so well proved, that during 
more than 200 years, since its first introduction into the materia medica, it 
