The deciduous shrub Lindera benzoin is an early-spring delight in the Piedmont when its delicate yellow blooms light up its bare branches.
by Mike Dunn

March is a month of transition. The weather can’t seem to make up its mind: stay in winter mode or bring on the warmth of spring? Across our property, I see and hear animal activity picking up and pair bonds being reinforced for the coming season of new life. The plants are following suit, with the first hints of green appearing and a few hardy species beginning to show their flowers.

One of the earliest to display in our woods is Northern Spicebush, Lindera benzoin. When I look out our window this time of year, I see the delicate yellow flowers tracing the shapes of still-leafless twigs on several of these shrubs scattered about the yard. I love checking out the flowers for early pollinators. Plus, seeing the tiny sprinkles of yellow helps me know spring is on the way.

Northern Spicebush is a deciduous shrub found throughout much of the eastern United States. It reaches heights of 6 to 15 feet and grows well in a variety of habitats but seems happiest in bottomland forests where the soils are rich and moist. In our yard, it’s a common understory shrub down along the creek, though it doesn’t bloom as profusely there as it does near the house, where it gets more sun. The tiny yellow-green flowers lack petals and male and female flowers are borne on separate plants (termed dioecious).

Pollinated flowers yield a greenish fruit that ripens into a scarlet red drupe (single-seed fruit) by late summer; the vivid color is an advertisement of its ripeness to potential consumers. The lipid-rich fruits, with important fatty acids and nutrients, are relished by many bird species, especially various thrushes during the fall migration. These frugivores aid the plant’s needs by eating the pulp surrounding the seeds. This greatly improves their germination rate.

The name “spicebush” comes from the spicy fragrance in the leaves, fruit and twigs. If you gently scratch a twig, you will smell a pleasant spicy aroma. These same plant parts also taste spicy. Spicebush leaves can be made into a tea, and the dried, crushed fruit is a reasonable substitute for allspice. Native Americans used the plant for many medicinal purposes, ranging from treating coughs to relieving the pain from bruises and arthritis. Spicebush is in the Laurel family of plants, Lauraceae. The aromatic leaves and essential oils in this plant family are important in many commercial uses and include useful species such as cinnamon, bay laurels and avocado. North Carolina relatives include Red Bay and sassafras, both of which share another important value of this group — they are the host plant for the caterpillars that become some of our most beautiful butterflies.

Being early bloomers, the flowers tend to attract a lot of pollinators. Many of the visitors are small bees, wasps and flies. One day last year, I spent some time observing one of these shrubs in a sunny spot in the yard. Its insect visitors also included two species of butterflies, a syrphid fly and a ladybug beetle.

Spicebush swallowtails are one of a few large black-and-blue butterflies with “tails” on their hind wings that you may see in our area. Females lay eggs on either spicebush or sassafras leaves. The larvae spread silk across a leaf, causing the leaf to curl as the silk dries and contracts. This provides a retreat for the developing caterpillar. The early stages are bird poop mimics, but as they grow, they have another strategy to avoid being eaten: Large fake eyes make them look like small snakes, something some birds think twice about trying to consume.

As they molt, they turn green and the eyespots enlarge. All stages of the larvae also have a forked gland, the osmeterium, that exudes a foul-smelling compound and deters predators. The caterpillars eventually change to an orange color and start looking for a place to pupate. When they find a suitable site, they form what is called a prepupa and attach themselves with a silk button at their base and a silk loop near the head. The next day, they molt their caterpillar skin one more time to reveal the chrysalis, which resembles a broken twig or piece of dried leaf. A beautiful black butterfly will emerge from the chrysalis to start the cycle anew.

These caterpillar cuties have always been crowd-pleasers at teacher workshops and museum events. They are one of the more reliable species we find; once you locate a spicebush or sassafras, you can just look for folded leaves. One of our neighbors had a native plant nursery for many years and they generously let me take potted spicebush plants with the larvae to events. After seeing and learning about the caterpillars, people were almost always anxious to buy a spicebush for their yard.

One thing to be on the lookout for is a disease called Laurel Wilt, which is spreading across the southeast. It is a fungal disease of plants in the Laurel family that is spread by a small introduced beetle called the Redbay Ambrosia Beetle. First detected in North Carolina in 2011, the disease has spread to most of our southeastern counties. The wood-boring beetles are native to southeast Asia and are believed to have been introduced to the U.S. through movement of beetle-infested wood. Once a beetle brings the fungus into a tree, that plant usually dies within a few weeks. Spicebush shrubs have not be hit as hard as Red bay trees have been, since their smaller-diameter trunks are not as attractive to the beetles. But we can all do our part by not transporting dead wood from infected areas for firewood or even wood chips or debris. More information on what is being done to better understand this disease can be found on the NC Forest Service website (ncagr.gov/divisions/nc-forest-service).

Spicebush is certainly one of my favorite native shrubs. It is a great combination of an early spring bloomer, a valuable bird-friendly plant, the host plant for one of our coolest caterpillars, the producer of some beautiful fall foliage and a scratch-and-sniff delight. It is definitely worth finding a spot for one in your landscape! 

This article originally appeared in the March 2025 issue of WALTER magazine.