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Genus SYMPLOCOS, L'Her.

Trees with pithy branchlets, forming open, round head. Leaves half evergreen, simple, alternate, entire, oval. Flowers small, perfect, white, bell shaped in axillary clusters. Fruit a brown berry. (S. tinctoria) SWEET LEAF

Symplocos is a large genus of trees that grow wild in Australia and in the tropics of Asia and America. Many species belonging to British India yield important dyes and drugs. A species from Japan has recently created a stir in horticultural circles in this country. It has profuse white flowers that look like those of the hawthorns, hence its name, S. cratoegoides. These racemed flowers give place to berries which turn on ripening to a brilliant blue, which make the shrubby tree a most striking and beautiful object in a garden in the fall. The only American representative of this genus is a little tree.

Sweet Leaf, Horse Sugar (Symplocos tinctoria, L'Her.)--A small, open-headed tree, 10 to 30 feet high, with short trunk and slim, ascending branches. Bark ashy grey with reddish cast, warty. Buds ovate, with triangular scales. Leaves leathery, dark green and lustrous above; paler and pubescent beneath; 5 to 6 inches long, 1 to 2 inches wide, tapering at base and apex; entire or remotely toothed on margins; petioles short, winged. Flowers white, fragrant, in close axillary clusters; March to May. Fruit, a brown, nut-like drupe with 1 seed. Preferred habitat, moist, shady woodlands. Distribution, Delaware to Florida; west to Blue Ridge Mountains, and in Gulf States to Louisiana and southern Arkansas. Uses: Rare in gardens, though it deserves attention for its handsome, sweet-tasting foliage. Bark of stems and roots, bitter and aromatic, yields yellow dye and has tonic medicinal properties. Horses and cattle browse the foliage.