Aromatic deciduous shrubs, sparingly branched. Twigs moderate, compressed at the nodes; pith relatively large, somewhat 6-sided, white, continuous. Buds several in a single bud-like aggregate, sessile, round, brown-hairy, without evident scales. Leaf-scars opposite, horseshoe-shaped, raised; bundle-traces 3; stipule-scars none.

Fig. 107. Calycanthus fertilis

Fig. 107. Calycanthus fertilis.

Fig. 108. Calycanthus floridus

Fig. 108. Calycanthus floridus.

All parts of the plants and particularly the dried wood yield a pleasant fragrance, suggesting the common names Sweet-Scented Shrub, or Sweet Shrub (or sometimes merely "Shrub").

a.

Twigs glabrescent or puberulous

1.

C. fertiiis

a.

Twigs more or less persistently villous

2.

C. floridus

1. C. fertilis Walt. Smooth Strawberry-Shrub. A branching shrub 12-27 dm. high, the branchlets glabrescent or slightly puberulous. Rich woods in the mountains, Georgia and Alabama, north to Pennsylvania (Fig. 107).

2. C. floridus L. Hairy Strawberry-Shrub. A branching shrub 6-27 dm. high, the branchlets more or less persistently villous. Rich woods, Florida to Mississippi, north to Virginia and West Virginia (Fig. 108).