Californian Sweet-Scented Shrub
Western Spice-Bush
Calycanthus Occidentalis, Hook. And Arn. Sweet Shrub Family
Shrubs.—Six to twelve feet high. Leaves.—Ovate to oblong-lanceolate; three to six inches long; dark green; roughish. Flowers.—Wine-colored (sometimes white); solitary; two inches or so across. Sepals, petals, and stamens indefinite, passing into each other; all coalescent below into the cuplike calyx-tube, on whose inner surface are borne the numerous carpels. Petals.—Linear-spatulate, usually tawny-tipped. Carpels becoming akenes. Hab.—From the lower Sacramento River northward.
This is one of our most beautiful shrubs. Upon the banks of streams, or often upon a shaded hillside where some little rill trickles out from a hidden source, it spreads its branches and lifts its canopy of ample leaves. There is a pleasant fragrance about the whole shrub, and the leaves, when crushed, are agreeably bitter. From April to November the charming flowers, like small wine-colored chrysanthemums, are produced; and these are followed by the prettily veined, urn-shaped seed-vessels, which remain upon the bushes until after the next season’s flowers appear, by which time they are almost black. It is from these cuplike seed-vessels that the genus takes its name, which is derived from two Greek words, meaning flower and cup.
CALIFORNIAN SWEET-SCENTED SHRUB—Calycanthus occidentalis.