Sassafras is a deciduous tree with imbricate buds composed of a few scales. Leaves are alternate and have lobed, mitten-shaped, or entire margins. Flowers are polygamous, or dioecious, in several-flowered racemes. Fruit is a drupe.
Sassafras albidum (variifolium, officinale)–Silky Sassafras
Silky Sassafras–Sassafras albidum (variifolium, officinale)
The sassafras is a small, aromatic tree usually not over 40 feet in height or a foot in diameter. It is common throughout the state on dry soils but rarer in the northern half. Sassafras is one of the first broad-leafed trees to come up in abandoned fields where seeds are dropped by birds. The tree also spreads rapidly by root suckers. It is closely related to the camphor tree of Japan.
The leaves are very characteristic. It is one of the few trees with leaves of widely different shapes on the same tree or even on the same twig. The leaves are large, 31/4—43/4 inches (81/2—12 cm) long, with entire margins. Some leaves are oval and entire. Others have one lobe resembling the thumb on a mitten, while still others are divided at the outer end into three distinct lobes.
Twigs are glabrous, uniformly green for 1—3 years, and very aromatic. The young leaves and twigs are quite mucilaginous. Branching is sympodial. The bark of the mature trunk is thick, red-brown, and deeply furrowed.
Flowers are yellow and borne in April or May. Fruit is bluish-black with a red stalk and ripens in September.
The flowers are clustered and greenish-yellow. They open with the first unfolding of the leaves. The male and female flowers are usually on different trees (dioecious), but some trees also have perfect flowers with unisexual ones. The fruit is an oblong, dark blue or black, lustrous berry. The berry contains one seed and is surrounded at the base by what appears to be a small, orange-red to scarlet cup at the end of a scarlet stalk.
The wood is light, soft, weak, and brittle. The heartwood is dull orange-brown. At one time it was used for ox yokes. The bark of the roots yields the very aromatic oil of sassafras. This oil is used for flavoring candies and sassafras tea.
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