4. SASSAFRAS Nees. Sassafras.
Pseudosassafras H. Lec.
Aromatic trees, with thick deeply furrowed dark red-brown bark, scaly buds, slender light green lustrous brittle branchlets containing a thick white mucilaginous pith and marked by small semiorbicular elevated leaf-scars displaying a single horizontal row of minute fibro-vascular bundle-scars, and stout spongy stoloniferous roots covered by thick yellow bark. Flower-bearing buds terminal, ovoid, acute, with 9 or 10 imbricated scales increasing in size from without inward, the 3 outer scales ovate, rounded, often apiculate at apex, keeled and thickened on the back, pale yellow-green below, dull yellow-brown above the middle, loosely imbricated, slightly or not at all accrescent, deciduous at the opening of the bud, much smaller than the thin accrescent light yellow-green scales of the next rows turning dull red before falling, and obovate, rounded at apex, cuneate below, concave, coated on the outer surface with soft silky pubescence, glabrous or lustrous on the inner surface, reflexed, ¾′ long, nearly ½′ broad, tardily deciduous, the 2 inner scales foliaceous, lanceolate, acute, light green, coated on the outer surface with delicate pale hairs, glabrous on the inner surface, infolding the leaves; sterile and axillary buds much smaller. Leaves involute in the bud, ovate or obovate, entire or often 1—3-lobed at apex, the lobes broadly ovate, acute, divided by deep broad sinuses, gradually narrowed at base into elongated slender petioles, feather-veined, with alternate veins arcuate and united or running to the points of the lobes, the lowest parallel with the margins, conspicuously reticulate-venulose, mucilaginous, deciduous. Flowers opening in early spring with the first unfolding of the leaves, the males and females usually on different individuals, in lax drooping few-flowered racemes in the axils of large obovate bud-scales, their pedicels slender, rarely forked and 2-flowered, without bracts, pilose, from the axils of linear acute scarious hairy deciduous bracts, or that of the terminal flower often without a bract; calyx pale yellow-green, divided nearly to the base into narrow obovate concave lobes spreading or reflexed after anthesis, glabrous or pubescent on the inner surface, those of the inner row a little larger than the others; stamens in the American species 9, in the Asiatic 12 with those of the inner series reduced to staminodes, inserted on the somewhat thickened margin of the shallow concave calyx-tube, those of the outer series opposite its outer lobes; filaments flattened, elongated, light yellow, those of the inner series furnished at base with 2 conspicuous orange-colored stipitate glands rounded on the back, obscurely lobed on the inner face, in the Asiatic species alternating with 3 staminodes; anthers introrse, oblong, flattened, truncate or emarginate at apex, 4-celled, 2-celled in the Formosan species, orange-colored, in the female flower reduced to flattened ovate pointed or slightly 2-lobed dark orange-colored stipitate staminodes, 6 in 2 rows in the American species and 12 similar to the stamens and staminodes of the staminate flower in the Asiatic species; or occasionally fertile and similar to or a little smaller than those of the staminate flower; ovary ovoid, light green, glabrous, nearly sessile in the short tube of the calyx, narrowed into an elongated simple style gradually enlarged above into a capitate oblique obscurely lobed stigma; in the staminate flower 0 in the American species, present, usually abortive, rarely fertile in the Asiatic species. Fruit an oblong dark blue or black lustrous berry surrounded at base by the enlarged and thickened obscurely 6-lobed or truncate scarlet or orange-red limb of the calyx, raised on a much elongated scarlet stalk thickened above the middle; pericarp thin and fleshy. Seed oblong, pointed, light brown; testa thin, membranaceous, barely separable into 2 coats, the inner coat much thinner than the outer, dark chestnut-brown, and lustrous.
Sassafras is confined to temperate eastern North America, central China and to Formosa where Sassafras tzumu Hemsl. and S. randaiense Rehd. occur.
Sassafras was first used as a popular name for this tree by the French in Florida.
1. [Sassafras officinale] Nees & Ebermaier.
Sassafras Sassafras Karst.
Leaves 4′—6′ long, 2′—4′ wide, densely pubescent when they first appear, pubescent or puberulous below at maturity especially on the midrib and veins; turning in the autumn delicate shades of yellow or orange more or less tinged with red; petioles ¾′—1½′ in length. Flowers ⅓′ long when fully expanded glabrous on the inner surface of the perianth, in racemes about 2′ in length, stamens 9. Fruit ripening in September and October, blue, ⅓′ long, on stalks 1½′—2′ in length, separating when ripe from the thick scarlet calyx-lobes persistent with the stalks of the fruit on the branches until the beginning of winter.
A tree, occasionally 80°—90° high, with a trunk nearly 6° in diameter, short stout more or less contorted branches spreading almost at right angles and forming a narrow usually flat-topped head, and slender branchlets light yellow-green and coated when they first appear with pale pubescence, becoming glabrous, bright green and lustrous, gradually turning reddish brown at the end of two or three years; frequently not more than 40°—50° tall; at the north and in Florida generally smaller and often shrubby. Winter-buds ¼′—⅜′ long. Bark of young stems and branches thin, reddish brown divided by shallow fissures, becoming on old trunks sometimes 1½′ thick, dark red-brown, and deeply and irregularly divided into broad flat ridges separating on the surface into thick appressed scales. Wood soft, weak, brittle, coarse-grained, very durable in the soil, aromatic, dull orange-brown, with thin light yellow sapwood of 7 or 8 layers of annual growth; largely used for fence-posts and rails, in the construction of light boats, ox-yokes, and in cooperage. The roots and especially their bark are a mild aromatic stimulant, and oil of sassafras, used to perfume soap and other articles, is distilled from them. Gumbo filet, a powder prepared from the leaves by the Choctaw Indians of Louisiana, gives flavor and consistency to gumbo soup. Passing into the var. albidum Blake, with glabrous or nearly glabrous young leaves, glabrous often glaucous young branchlets, and lighter colored less valuable wood; uplands of western New England to the mountains of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee.
Distribution. Usually in rich sandy well-drained soil, southern Maine and eastern Massachusetts, through southern Vermont to southern Ontario, central Michigan, and southeastern Iowa to eastern Kansas and Oklahoma, and southward to central Florida (Orange County) and the valley of the Brazos River, Texas; ascending on the southern Appalachian Mountains to altitudes of 4000°; in the south Atlantic and Gulf states often taking possession of abandoned fields.
Occasionally cultivated in the eastern states as an ornamental tree.
5. MISANTECA Cham. & Schl.
Trees with terete branchlets. Leaves coriaceous, persistent. Flowers perfect, minute, on slender pedicels, in terminal or axillary cymose panicles; peduncles and pedicels from the axils of acuminate caducous bracts and bractlets; perianth fleshy, ovoid or obovoid, 6-toothed; stamens 9, inserted near the middle of the perianth, those of the outer rank united into a fleshy column, furnished at base with three pairs of glands, inclosing the pistil and slightly longer than the perianth, those of the inner ranks, sterile, short or obsolete; anthers extrorse, 2-celled, the cells united; ovary gradually narrowed into a thick style as long as the staminal tube; stigma capitate. Fruit baccate, olive-shaped, surrounded at base by the enlarged ligneous capsular perianth of the flower much thickened on the margin; pericarp thin and fleshy; endocarp thin, crustaceous; seed filling the cavity of the fruit; testa thin, crustaceous; hilum minute, apical; cotyledons plano-convex, fleshy; radicle superior, minute.
Of the three species of the genus now known one occurs in southern Florida and Cuba, and the others in tropical Mexico.
The name of the genus is derived from the name of the tree, Palo Misanteca at Misantha, near the coast of the state of Vera Cruz where the type species was discovered.
1. [Misanteca triandra] Mez.
Leaves elliptic-lanceolate, ovate or broad-elliptic, entire, abruptly long-pointed and acuminate at apex, gradually narrowed and acuminate at base, deeply tinged with red and villose on the under side of the midrib when they unfold, soon glabrous, and at maturity dark green and lustrous above, pale below, 3′—4′ long and 1½′—2′ wide, with slightly undulate margins, a prominent midrib, slender primary veins, and reticulate veinlets conspicuous on the lower surface; petioles stout, narrow wing-margined at apex, pubescent when they first appear, soon glabrous, ⅓′—½′ in length. Flowers glabrous or puberulous, purplish, about 1/12′ long, in 3—5-flowered cymes on slender peduncles, in pubescent panicles shorter than the leaves; tube of the perianth funnel-form, the lobes equal, triangular, acute; column of stamens pilose; ovary glabrous. Fruit in few-fruited clusters on much elongated and thickened peduncles, ellipsoidal or slightly ovoid, acute, dark blue, ⅘′ long and ⅗′ thick; cupule light red, thickened and verrucose, acute at base, the margin reflexed, thin and entire on the inner edge, thick and crenulate on the outer edge; seed ellipsoidal, pointed at apex, rounded at base, light brown, slightly ridged when dry.
A tree in Florida 40°—50° high, with a tall trunk 15′—20′ in diameter, small spreading and pendent branches forming a broad round-topped head, and slender red branchlets pubescent when they first appear, soon becoming glabrous, and marked by numerous large pale lenticels.
Rich hummocks between Miami and Homestead, Dade County, Florida; in Cuba and Jamaica.