
Spicebush. Photo contributed
SPICEBUSH! I BRAKED MY MOUNTAIN BIKE hard to take a closer look. I was pleased to see dozens of Lindera benzoin scattered beneath the cottonwood trees, in a section of Schodack Island State Park not yet swamped by invasives. The cottonwoods were bare, and the surrounding weeds still green, so the luminous yellow of the spicebushes gave them center stage on a cloudy fall day. Bike botany, neat native plants, glorious autumn—by George, who could ask for anything more?
I first appreciated spicebush along another trail, the Bronx River Parkway, where it grows in profusion in the damp soil. Indigenous to much of the eastern half of the country, it is a medium-sized understory shrub about 12 feet tall. All parts of the plant have a strong aromatic odor, pleasing in an odd medicinal way. Flowering in very early spring, its clusters of small yellow blossoms are much more demure than brassy forsythia, but attractive nonetheless. Spring flowers sell plants, but whereas you’ll find forsythia for sale in droves at the big boxes, spicebush is more difficult to discover in the nursery trade and sought out only by those in the know (such as you and I). Someday, when the public gains a greater appreciation of our native flora, perhaps the sales figures on these two species will be reversed, with spicebush finding a place in just about every local landscape now occupied by a forsythia. Read more…