Lindera melissifolia, common name pondberry or southern spicebush, is a stoloniferous, deciduous, aromatic shrub in the laurel family.

This endangered species is native to the southeastern United States, and its demise is associated with habitat loss from extensive drainage of wetlands for agriculture and forestry.

Form: Pondberry occurs in dense thickets with erect or ascending shoots up to 2 m (6.6 ft) tall and few branches; stems are connected underground by stolons.

Fruit: A bright red, single-seeded drupe, ellipsoid, 10–12 mm (0.4–0.5 in) long matures in late summer or fall (August to early October).

Most pondberry colonies occur in light shade beneath a forest canopy, but a few grow in almost full sunlight.

Habitat fragmentation severely affects dioecious species like pondberry because populations with plants of a single sex can only vegetatively reproduce.

[11] The cause of this apparent lack of natural reproduction is not currently known, but the consequences are clear—it severely reduces the species' chance for long-term survival.

Although the fruit of pondberry sinks in water after a short time, the seed with the pulp removed will float for a day or sometimes longer.

[13] Characteristics of pondberry's fruit—the showy color, fleshy pulp, and its persistent on stems—suggest that animals, particularly birds, may be important dispersal agents.

Mammals may also be potential dispersers of pondberry seeds, including the raccoon (Procyon lotor) and opossum (Didelphis virginiana).

Under field conditions, germination of sown seeds has been observed to occur over a number of years suggesting some form of dormancy.

[16][17] Both transplants and seedlings do well under cultivation in a nursery setting, which has been used to provide planting stock for creating new colonies in field locations.

[13] Animals observed to consume pondberry seeds located on a cleared soil surface in a hardwood forest included: northern cardinal, brown thrasher (Toxostoma rufum), swamp rabbit (Sylvilagus aquaticus), armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus), and gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis).

[16] A vintage use of pondberry fruit in the rural South was as projectiles in toy pop guns constructed by children from hollowed-out elderberry (Sambucus canadensis) stems.

[19][20] A large part of pondberry habitat disappeared when forests were cut for timber or for conversion to agricultural fields, and as wetlands were drained.

There is no known cure for this disease, which has quickly spread through other members of the laurel family (especially redbay, Persia borbonia) from the coast of South Carolina inland towards the native habitat of pondberry.