Family

Laurel.

Colour

Greenish yellow.

Odour

Spicy.

Range

Massachusetts southward and westward.

Time of Bloom

March, April.

Flowers: both staminate and pistillate, with a four-leaved involucre underneath; clustered along the branches and appearing before the leaves. Calyx: of six sepals. Corolla: none. Stamens: nine, in the sterile blossoms. Pistillate flowers with a rounded ovary. Fruit: an oblong, red berry. Leaves; alternate; oblong; on short petioles; hairy along the margins and having an aromatic flavour. A shrub four to fifteen feet high , with brittle branches.

A valuable bush of the moist woods and thickets and one of the earliest to come into bloom. Its leaves and berries, as its name spice-bush implies, have often performed kindly services for housewives that live at a great distance from "the store."