SASSAFRAS
- Sassafras, Nees ab Esenbeck u. Ebermaier, Handb. Med. Pharm. Bot. i. 418 (1830); Bentham et Hooker, Gen. Pl. iii. 160 (1880).
Deciduous trees belonging to the order Lauraceæ, with alternate pinnately-veined simple leaves without stipules. Flowers dicecious or rarely perfect, in few-flowered racemes in the axils of bud-scales at the ends of the previous year’s shoots. Calyx six-lobed, the lobes in two series, imbricated in bud ; petals absent. Staminate flowers ; stamens nine in three series, the three inner ones each with two stalked glands at the base; anthers opening with four valves. Pistillate flowers with flattened ovate pointed or slightly two-lobed staminodes, or occasionally with fertile stamens like those of the male flowers; ovary ovoid, glabrous, superior, one-celled; ovule solitary, suspended ; one style elongated with a capitate stigma. Fruit an oblong- ovoid, one-seeded dark-blue berry, surrounded at the base by the enlarged and thickened calyx-limb, and supported on pedicels much thickened above the middle.
The genus comprises only two species, one occurring in North America and the other in China.
SASSAFRAS TZUMU, Chinese Sassafras
- Sassafras Tzumu, Hemsley, in Kew Bull. 1907, p. 55, and in Hooker, Icon. Plant. t. 2833 (1907).
- Litsea laxiflora, Hemsley, Journ. Linn. Soc. (Bot.) xxvi. 383, t. 8 (1891).
- Lindera Tzumu, Hemsley, op. cit. 392 (1891).
This species grows sparingly in China in mountain woods at 3000 to 5000 feet elevation, south-west of Ichang, in the province of Hupeh; near Kiukiang in Kiangsi; and inland from Ningpo in Chekiang. It attains a height of 50 feet and yields a timber esteemed by the mountaineers, who call it the tzu-mu or huang ch‘iu tree. Resembling very closely the American species in the characters of the foliage and inflorescence, it was considered by Prof. Sargent’ and Mr. E.H. Wilson to be indistinguishable. Mr. Hemsley, however, points out certain differences in the floral organs, which entitle it to rank as a distinct species. The flowers are slightly smaller than those of the American tree, and are pubescent within and not glabrous as in that species. The male flowers have three staminodes alternating with the glandular row of stamens and a prominent pistillode, which are wanting in Sassafras
1 Trees N. Amer, 336 (1905).
