North Carolina Wildflowers, Shrubs, & Trees

Lauraceae > Lindera (spicebush)

Common statewide in North Carolina in bottomlands and rich forests.

Spring flowers are yellow and borne in clusters along the twigs before the leaves emerge.

Leaves are simple, alternately arranged, fairly elliptic, and are quite fragrant when crushed.

Fruits are drupes and are also fragrant, spicy, and edible. They have been used as a substitute for allspice.

Leaf undersides are finely pubescent (hairy) in the variety found in the eastern half of NC. In the NC mountains is a different variety (var. benzoin) of Northern Spicebush with lacks the hairy leaves.

Scratching the bark, especially of the twigs, and crushing the leaves offers a pleasant spice aroma. Note the bark displays prominent lenticels.

In North Carolina, Pondberry is known only from three populations in the southeastern portion of the state. Pondberry is a federally and state listed endangered species.

Pondberry grows in wet depression areas like Carolina bays and is a much smaller shrub than Northern Spicebush.

Bark of young and old stems.

An endangered species in North Carolina and a US Species of Concern, Bog Spicebush grows in "peaty seepage bogs in headwaters of blackwater streams, in the sandhills and immediately adjacent Piedmont," according to Weakley (2007).

Spicebush is dioecious, meaning plants are either male or female but not both. This is a female.

Twigs & vegetation have a lemon aroma when scratched.