Blazing Beauties

Few native trees announce themselves as cheerfully as Sassafras albidum, whose leaves come in three shapes on the same branch: an unlobed oval, a two-lobed mitten, and a three-lobed silhouette like a splayed hand. A member of the laurel family, Lauraceae, and kin to bay, cinnamon, and spicebush, sassafras carries aromatic oils in every part, so that a snapped twig or crushed leaf releases a warm, root-beer sweetness. The common name traces back through Spanish to the colonial Southeast, where the tree was among the first American plants shipped to Europe as a marketable medicine.

Hardiness

Zones 4–9

Light

Full Sun / Part Shade

Height

30–60 ft.

Spread

25–40 ft.

Bloom

Yellow

Plant type

Tree

Traditional use

detoxification & cleansing, digestive health, respiratory support, pain relief, topical applications

Dwarf greenbrier is the gentlest member of a prickly clan. Where most of the greenbriers, the Smilax vines, arm themselves with vicious hooks, Smilax pumila comes up soft and unarmed, a low, scrambling, evergreen groundcover of the Southeastern coastal plain, safe to handle and easy to place. The mottled, arrow-shaped leaves hold a quiet, marbled green through the year, and on female plants clusters of bright orange to red berries glow in the winter undergrowth like drops of fire.

Hardiness

Zones 7–9

Light

Part Shade / Full Shade

Height

12–15 in.

Spread

24–36 in.

Plant type

Groundcover

Traditional use

pain relief, digestive health, detoxification & cleansing