1. L. Benzòin, Blume. (Spice-bush. Benjamin-bush.) Nearly smooth (6–15° high); leaves oblong-obovate, pale underneath.—Damp woods, N. Eng. to Ont., Mich., E. Kan., and southward. March, April.
2. L. melissæfòlia, Blume. Young branches and buds pubescent; leaves oblong, obtuse or heart-shaped at base, downy beneath; umbels few.—Low grounds, N. C. to Fla., west to S. Ill. and Mo. April.
Order 94. THYMELÆÀCEÆ. (Mezereum Family.)
Shrubs, with acrid and very tough (not aromatic) bark, entire leaves, and perfect flowers with a regular and simple colored calyx, bearing usually twice as many stamens as its lobes, free from the 1-celled and 1-ovuled ovary, which forms a berry-like drupe in fruit, with a single suspended anatropous seed. Embryo large; albumen little or none.
1. Dirca. Calyx tubular, without spreading lobes. Stamens and style exserted.
2. Daphne. Calyx-lobes (4) spreading. Stamens included. Style very short or none.
1. DÍRCA, L. Leatherwood. Moosewood.
Calyx petal-like, tubular-funnel-shaped, truncate, the border wavy or obscurely about 4-toothed. Stamens 8, long and slender, inserted on the calyx above the middle, protruded, the alternate ones longer. Style thread-form; stigma capitate. Drupe oval (reddish).—A much-branched bush, with jointed branchlets, oval-obovate alternate leaves, at length smooth, deciduous, on very short petioles, the bases of which conceal the buds of the next season. Flowers light yellow, preceding the leaves, 3 or 4 in a cluster from a bud of as many dark-hairy scales, forming an involucre, from which soon after proceeds a leafy branch. (Name of uncertain derivation.)
1. D. palústris, L. Shrub 2–5° high; the wood white, soft, and very brittle; but the fibrous bark remarkably tough (used by the Indians for thongs, whence the popular names).—Damp rich woods, N. Brunswick to Minn. and Mo., south to the Gulf. April.
2. DÁPHNE, Linn. Mezereum.