Sassafras

Media
Illustration of sassafras leaves, flowers, fruit.
Scientific Name
Sassafras albidum
Family
Lauraceae (laurels)
Description

Sassafras is a short to medium-sized tree, often forming colonies from root sprouts, with a columnar canopy, a flattened crown, and contorted branches that turn upward at their ends.

Leaves are alternate, simple, aromatic when crushed, 4–6 inches long, 2–4 inches wide, broadest at the middle; having 3 shapes (entire; with a single lobe on one side like a mitten; or trident-shaped), tip pointed or rounded, base tapered.

Bark is aromatic, reddish-brown to gray, with deep grooves and firm, long, flat-topped ridges.

Twigs are moderately stout, curved upward at the tips, yellowish-green becoming greenish-brown with age; broken twigs have a spicy odor.

Flowers April–May. Male and female flowers occur on separate trees in stalked, branched clusters about 2 inches long, at the tips of twigs; flowers small, yellow, petals absent; sepals 6, spreading.

Fruits in late August–October. Berrylike, widest at the middle, about ½ inch long, dark blue, shiny, attached to a swollen stalk; stalk about 1½ inches long, red.

Size

Height: to 60 feet.

Where To Find
image of Sassafras distributon map

Nearly statewide; absent from the northern quarter.

Occurs on the border of dry woods, glades, prairies, and in bottomland soils in valleys; also along roadsides, railroads, idle fields, pastures, fence rows, and thickets. Long in cultivation, sassafras requires full sun for best growth. It is one of our most striking and aromatic trees.

Missouri’s beloved sassafras trees face a new threat. Laurel wilt — an invasive, tree-killing disease — has been found within 10 miles of the state’s southeastern border in western Tennessee. Laurel wilt kills sassafras as well as its close relatives — spicebush and the federally endangered pondberry.

Laurel wilt is a lethal vascular wilt disease that rapidly kills entire clumps of sassafras and its relatives. The disease is spread to new areas when the tiny, wood-boring redbay ambrosia beetle (Xyleborus glabratus) deposits spores of the fungus Raffaelea lauricola in healthy trees. Because colonies of sassafras trees are often connected underground through the roots, you might see entire clumps of wilted or dead sassafras as laurel wilt spreads through the colony. The leaves may cling to affected trees for months after death. Other signs to look for are dark staining in the sapwood under the bark and tiny ambrosia beetle exit holes in the bark.

The redbay ambrosia beetle the wilt-causing fungus it carries are native to Asia. Scientists suspect the beetles first entered the U.S. around 2002 through a major shipping port in Georgia.

There is currently no treatment for infected trees, although research on preventative treatments is under way. Dead and dying trees should be destroyed to slow further spread of the disease.

Native shrub or small tree.

North American populations of sassafras are threatened by an introduced fungal disease called laurel wilt, which is transmitted by nonnative redbay ambrosia beetles. There is currently no treatment available.

Long considered a source for medicinal tea, and an ingredient in traditional root beers and in Creole cooking, the presence of carcinogenic compounds has been banned in commercially mass-produced foods and drugs.

Laurel wilt disease, which is spreading in North America, kills sassafras trees and their relatives in the laurel family. The fungal disease, with the beetles that transmit it, apparently arrived on our continent on imported wood packing materials. Thus its presence on our continent is a byproduct of global shipping. In addition to killing sassafras, the disease also kills red bay (Persea borbonia, a native shrub in the southeastern United States, which is declining drastically due to the disease), as well as Missouri native spicebush and endangered pondberry shrubs. Avocados are also in the laurel family. Biologists warn that the disease probably will spread to Latin America and other regions where avocados are grown and, when that happens, will have a devastating effect on those crops. (If you love guacamole, you might feel devastated, too.)

Sassafras is the traditional flavoring for root beer and thickening agent (filé) for Creole gumbo.

Root tea of sassafras and its close relative, spicebush, has long been used as a folk remedy for a variety of ailments (for example, for "thinning" or "purifying" the blood). There are many folklore beliefs about what roots are the best, such as a preference for "young, red" roots over "larger, white" ones; also, that it is not worth harvesting roots until after February 14.

European explorers in the 1500s and 1600s thought it was a cure-all, and soon Europeans were paying high prices for its import ― but this was back when virtually any aromatic plant was considered curative for almost any ailment.

Since then, science has cast doubt on its efficacy and has shown that safrole, an oil in sassafras, causes cancer in laboratory animals. The FDA has banned use sassafras tea, roots, and oil in commercially mass-produced foods and drugs.

Many people still enjoy sassafras tea, especially as a spring tonic. The roots are dug up, washed, cut into pieces, and put in boiling water. People enjoy it hot or cold, sweetened or unsweetened. You can make a sassafras jelly, too; start by preparing a very strong sassafras root tea, add sugar and powdered fruit pectin. Sassafras jelly goes well with wild meats and pork.

You can use the young leaves, buds, and twigs in soups and for making teas. The young raw leaves add a spicy touch to a tossed salad. When dried, the leaves are used in soups and creole dishes. You will find many more ideas with an internet search.

The celebrated folklorist Vance Randolph reported that Ozark oldtimers believed that a sassafras "bat" had to be used when stirring to render lard, as it was supposed to flavor the lard and keep it from turning rancid. Many people still maintain that sassafras wood is the preferred stirrer for the long cooking process of making apple butter.

Randolph reported several other Ozark sassafras superstitions. For example, burning sassafras (which, he notes, makes a high-quality charcoal) was believed to cause the death of one's mother, so no one would burn it or even move it to the kiln, unless his mother was already dead. An old Ozark saying went, "the Devil sits a-straddle of the roof when sassafras pops in the fireplace."

Finally, Randolph also reported that some Ozarkers used to believe that sassafras trees "somehow" sprouted "from grub worms." (Maybe this idea came from its suckering habit and its being the host of butterfly caterpillars?)

The wood has many uses, too. In the state of Louisiana, the floors in the cabins of enslaved people were often made of sassafras wood, as the scented wood was believed to repel bedbugs. Sassafras used to be popular for making bedsteads, for the same reason.

A pleasant tree in cultivation, the leaves of sassafras can be spectacular in autumn. The large taproot makes it difficult to transplant, and sassafras trees send out root suckers, creating a multistemmed shrub or colony if the suckers are not removed. Thus it can be a beautiful medium-sized specimen tree or a shrubby screen if allowed to colonize.

The name "sassafras" apparently is ultimately derived from the Latin saxifraga, which means "stone-breaker" and refers to plants in a completely different family. Germans have called the plant Fenchelholz ("fennel wood") for its aromatic qualities. Native Americans in the eastern United States called it winauk and pauane.

If you are at a jam music concert and someone offers you "sassafras," don't be fooled: the word is used as slang for the psychedelic drug MDA, a controlled substance in the United States.

The fruit is eaten by many species of birds, including bobwhite, woodpeckers, mockingbirds and catbirds, flycatchers, and wild turkey. The leaves and twigs are browsed by woodchucks, deer, rabbits, and bears. Rabbits may eat the bark in wintertime.

The leaves are also a primary food for a host of spectacular moths and butterflies, including the lovely black and blue spicebush swallowtail. Female spicebush swallowtails can "taste" leaves with their forelegs, and when they land on a sassafras leaf, they know they have found a suitable egg-laying site. Their caterpillars, sometimes called "leaf rollers," spin silk onto a leaf surface. The silk contracts as it dries, and the leaf folds up, creating a shelter for the caterpillar to hide in by day. At night, the larvae feed on sassafras leaves.

Sassafras is a common component in fence rows and thickets, and thickets are important habitat and cover for a wide range of animals. In addition to the brushy cover, the diverse plants in a thicket support a diverse insect community, and hungry birds may be drawn to both the fruits of the plants as well as the insects.

Laurel wilt disease, which kills sassafras and its close relatives, would have a significant impact on the many animals that use them as food or host plants.

Sassafras trees in the northern part of their range tend to be smaller than those in the south. The range and numbers of sassafras seem to have expanded upon European settlement due to the many woodland/field borders farmers created.

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About Trees, Shrubs and Woody Vines in Missouri
There are no sharp dividing lines between trees, shrubs, and woody vines, or even between woody and nonwoody plants. “Wood” is a type of tissue made of cellulose and lignin that many plants develop as they mature — whether they are “woody” or not. Trees are woody plants over 13 feet tall with a single trunk. Shrubs are less than 13 feet tall, with multiple stems. Vines require support or else sprawl over the ground.