Sassafras.
Laurus sassafras, Willd. Sp. Pl. vol. ii. p. 485. Pursh, Fl. Amer. Sept. vol. i. 277.—Enneandria Monogynia, Linn. Lauri, Juss.
The Sassafras grows on almost every kind of soil in the Southern and Western States, where it is of common occurrence. Along the Atlantic States it extends as far as New Hampshire, and still farther north in the western country. The beauty of its foliage and its medicinal properties render it one of our most interesting trees. It attains a height of fifty or sixty feet, with a proportionate diameter. The leaves are alternate, petiolate, oval, and undivided, or three-lobed. The flowers, which appear before the leaves, are of a greenish-yellow colour, and the berries are of an oval form and bluish-black tint, supported on cups of a bright red, having long filiform peduncles.