The _sassafras_ grows wild from Massachusetts to Florida, and west through the Mississippi Valley. It is generally a small tree, from thirty to fifty feet high, and is often found growing in dense thickets in uncultivated fields. The edible bark is dark red-brown. It is thick but not hard and is deeply ridged and scaled. The cracked bark is one of the characteristics of the tree; it begins to split when the tree is about three years old. The strong aromatic flavor is held by the bark, the wood, the roots, the stems, and the leaves. I have never tasted the fruit, which is berry-like, dark blue, and glossy, and is held by a thick, scarlet calyx; but the birds are fond of it.
Sassafras tea was at one time considered the best of spring medicines for purifying the blood, and the bark was brought to market cut in short lengths and tied together in bunches.
The leaves are varied; on one twig there will sometimes be three differently shaped leaves. Some will be oval, some with three lobes, and some mitten-shaped; that is, an oval leaf with a side lobe like the thumb of a mitten.
There is no more refreshing salad than the _watercress_ gathered fresh from a cool, running brook. It is a common plant, found almost anywhere in streams and brooks. Its smooth green or brownish leaves lie on the top of the water; they are compound, with from three to nine small rounded leaflets. The flavor is peppery and pungent. Watercress sandwiches are good. The white flowers are small and insignificant and grow in a small cluster at the end of the stem.
A salad of tender, young _dandelion_ leaves is not to be despised, and the plant grows everywhere. Only the very young leaves, that come up almost white in the spring, are good. The flavor is slightly bitter with the wholesome bitterness one likes in the spring of the year. These young leaves are also good when cooked like spinach. The plant is so common it does not really call for a description, and if you know it you can skip the following:
Growing low on the ground, sometimes with leaves lying flat on the surface, the dandelion sends up a hollow, leafless stem crowned with a bright-yellow, many-petalled flower about the size of a silver fifty-cent piece. The seed head is a round ball of white down. The leaves are deeply notched, much like thistle leaves, but they have no prickles.