This section is from the book "Harper's Guide To Wild Flowers", by Caroline A. Creevey. Also available from Amazon: Harper's Guide To Wild Flowers.
Fertile flowers, in ball-like catkins, the fruit being a little hard, green nut surrounded by 8 long, awl-shaped, persistent green scales. In the sterile catkins the scales are pointed above, heart or kidney - shape below. Leaves, long, lance-shape, cut into fern-like divisions. April and May.
In woods and on hillsides where the soil is dry and sandy. A favorite, common, low shrub,whose leaves when crushed give out a pleasant odor. They droop quickly after being picked.
 
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