This section is from the book "Harper's Guide To Wild Flowers", by Caroline A. Creevey. Also available from Amazon: Harper's Guide To Wild Flowers.
Family, Olive. Color, greenish yellow. Leaves, lance - shape to ovate, opposite or sometimes fascicled, on slender petioles 1 to 4 inches long. Flowers, small, appearing before the leaves, the pistillate in threes on a common peduncle; the staminate in fascicles from the leaf-axils of the preceding year.
In swamps and along river-banks from Illinois to Georgia and westward to Texas.
 
Continue to: