The Description.

The Sassafras tree grows very great much like to the Pine tree: the trunk or body is straight, smooth, and void of boughs, of a great height: it is covered with a twofold gross rind, the uppermost of the colour of ashes, that next the wood of a tawny colour: on the top come forth many goodly branches like those of the Palm tree, whereon grow green leaves somewhat like those of the Fig tree, of a sweet smell when they be green, but much sweeter when they be dry, declining to the smell of fennel, with much sweetness in taste: they are green winter and summer, neither bearing fruit nor flowers, but is altogether barren as it is said: the roots are gross, conformable to the greatness of the tree, of a tawny colour, dispersing themselves far abroad under the upper crust of the earth, by means whereof they are often cast down with mean blasts of wind. The wood of the tree is very strong, hard, and brittle, it hath not so strong & pleasant a smell as that of the root; neither is it in such use. The leaves are of two sorts, some long and smooth, and not snipped about the edges; other some, and those chiefly on the end of the branches, are deeply gashed in, as it were divided into three several parts. I have given the figure of a branch taken from a little tree, which grew in the garden of Mr Wilmot at Bow; who died some few years ago.

The Place.

This tree groweth in most parts of the West Indies, specially about the cape of Florida, Wingandacoa, and Virginia, otherwise named Norembega.

The Time.

It flourisheth and keepeth green winter and summer.

The Name.

The Spaniards and French men have named this tree, Sassafras: the Indians in their tongue, Pavame: for want of an English name we are contented to call it the Ague tree, of his virtue in healing the Ague.

The Temperature.

The boughs and branches hereof are hot & dry in the second degree; the rind is hotter, for that it entereth into the third degree of heat and dryness, as is manifestly perceived in the decoction.

The Virtues.

A. The best of all the tree is the root, and that worketh the best effect, the which hath the rind cleaving very fast to the inner part, and is of colour tawny, and much more sweet of smell than all the tree and his branches.

B. The rind tasteth of a more sweet smell than the tree; and the water being sod with the root is of greater and better effects than any other part of the tree, and is of a more sweet smell, and therefore the Spaniards use it, for that it worketh better and greater effects.

C. It is a tree that groweth near unto the sea, and in temperate places that have not much drouth, nor moisture. There be mountains growing full of them, and they cast forth a most sweet smell, so that at the beginning when they saw them first, they thought they had been trees of Cinnamon, & in part they were not deceived: for that the rind of this tree hath as sweet a small as cinnamon hath, and doth imitate it in colour and sharpness of taste, and pleasantness of smell: and so the water that is made of it is of a most sweet smell and taste, as the cinnamon is, and procureth the same works and effects as cinnamon doth.

D. The wood hereof cut in small pieces and boiled in water, to the colour of claret wine, and drunk, for certain days together, helpeth the dropsy, removeth oppilation or stopping of the liver, cureth quotidian and tertian agues, and long fevers.

E. The root of Sassafras hath power to comfort the liver, and to free from oppilations, to comfort the weak and feeble stomach, to cause good appetite, to consume windiness, the chiefest cause of crudity and indigestion, stay vomiting, and make sweet a stinking breath.

F. It provoketh urine, removeth the impediments that do cause barrenness, and maketh women apt to conceive.