Botanical atlas
Spicebush
Lindera benzoin
This plant is kept in the atlas for identification and safety, not for use. Read the safety notes below before handling it, and keep it away from children, cats, and food.
Long before allspice arrived on ships from the Caribbean, Spicebush was doing its work in the pantries and sickrooms of eastern North America. Native peoples, including the Cherokee, Iroquois, and Delaware, steeped its twigs and bark into a warming tea for colds, fevers, coughs, and an unsettled stomach, and the fragrant reddish berries were dried and crushed as a peppery seasoning for meats and stews. Colonial settlers adopted the plant eagerly, calling it wild allspice, and leaned on it during shortages of imported spices when trade routes were cut off. It became a familiar dooryard remedy, the kind of shrub every household knew by scent alone.
Safety.
Spicebush has a long history as a culinary spice and tea with no significant toxicity on record.
Our sister app HerbLens identifies spicebush from a photo and keeps its full botanical portrait: growing guide, harvest notes, and look-alike warnings.
View on HerbLensHerbSense shares traditional herbal knowledge for education, not diagnosis or treatment. Herbs can interact with medicines and conditions. Speak with your doctor before acting on anything here, and seek care promptly for anything severe, sudden, or worsening.