 The species name, "palustris", means "of the swamps".It is often hard to recognize because the flowers, which come out just before leafing, last a very short time and "D. palustris" may be mixed in with the much more frequent Spicebush, which also has small yellow flowers that appear before the leaves and do so at just about the same time in the early spring.Its closest relative, the western leatherwood, lives across the continent in the San Francisco Bay Area.