Flowering occurs in very early spring - March in my USDA zone 7 garden. Actually, it never really dawned on me that the early greening I saw on these plants were flowers . For some reason, I never investigated closely - perhaps inclement weather or general spring hysteria. From a distance, I just thought they were leafing out. The flowers aren't exactly flamboyant, as this close-up shows, but now that I know what they are, I mean to inspect them next spring.
Some references say that they're fragrant.
The shrubs are also host plants for the tiger and spicebush swallowtail butterflies. Dried, ground berries have been used as a substitute for allspice. A close-up of a drupe cluster. As you can see from the previous image, drupes are formed either singly, in pairs or in clusters. Inside each berry is a single, large, hard, light violet brown flecked with darker brown seed, almost as large as the berry.