The Sassafras Tree.
Sassafras.
A beautiful tree, native of America, and to be met with in some of our gardens. It grows twenty five or thirty feet high. The trunk is naked till it comes near the top. The branches grow near together, and spread irregularly. The leaves are of two kinds: those on the older parts of the twigs are oblong and pointed, somewhat like bay leaves; and those on the tops of the blanches are larger, broader, and divided into three parts, like the leaves of maple, or they carry some resemblance of the smaller leaves of the fig tree. The flowers are small and yellow. The fruit are berries like bay berries. The wood is f a reddish colour and perfumed smell.
The wood is used. Our druggists receive it in logs, and cut it out into shavings. The wood of the root is best, and its bark contains most virtue of all. It is best taken in infusion, by way of tea for it is very pleasant: it promotes sweat, and is good against the scurvy, and all other foulnesses of the blood. It is a constant ingredient in diet drinks against the venereal disease.
