DECIDUOUS TREES. 
411 
The Catalpa Bangei is still more dwarfish, being a shrub 
three to five feet high. The flowers are in clusters a foot long. 
What has been said about protection for our native catalpa at the 
north, applies with still more force to these imported sorts. We 
believe that in a deep dry warm soil they will prove hardy in the 
northern States, if protected until their roots have had time to become 
established below the ordinary freezing of the earth. Yet we would 
not omit late autumn mulching and some covering for the tops 
until they are so large that it cannot conveniently be done. 
F:g. 130. 
THE SASSAFRAS. Laurus sassafras. 
This is the only quite hardy species of the beautiful laurel 
family, so highly prized for their abundant glossy foliage in the 
southern States, (there known as bay trees); and interesting as 
the only representative in the northern States of the noble laurel 
or bay, whose leaves have always been symbols of victory, and 
endless themes for poetical allusions. It is also allied by family 
ties to those two most aromatic trees, the camphor tree of Japan, 
and the cinnamon tree of Ceylon, both of which are species of lau¬ 
rel. Though the sassafras grows wild all over the country wherever 
