One of the first flower sights to greet us as we ride through our beautiful Ozarks in early spring is the yellow bloom of the sassafras tree in the still bare woodlands. This bloom comes when the buds which tip each twig start to swell.
Quite suddenly, the tree is transformed by hundreds of compact bunches of yellow flowers in candelabra forms.
Sassafras Tree’s Beauty And Usefulness
The beauty and usefulness of this tree do not stop here. It is carried on through the following seasons.
In late summer there are the dark blue berries that ripen, and the sassafras tree then becomes a mecca for the birds that find in them a welcome change of diet.
In the fall, there is the beautiful coloring of the foliage; some compare it to the autumn foliage of sweet gum.
One of the most interesting things about this tree is that it bears leaves of three forms on the same branch.
These are:
- First, the simple ovate
- Second, the three-lobed
- Third and the most interesting is the one shaped like a mitten
Earliest Sassafras Recollection
To many of us, our earliest recollections of the sassafras is the tea made from its roots, which we were given as children in early spring to “clear the blood.”
Other early recollections may have been when we took that first spring woodland walk and plucked and munched some of the dainty green buds with their spicy, aromatic, and refreshing flavor; or perhaps we dug some of the roots ourselves for that “spring tonic.”
A Tree Of Fence Corners And Woodland Borders
The sassafras is a tree of the fence corners and woodland borders. It delights in neglected and abandoned fields. On one of the hilltops near our Antonia, Missouri, country home is an old neglected peach orchard.
We can see the sassafras creeping in and “taking over” as time passes. It is a thrill to walk through these thickets at almost any time of the year, inhaling that wonderful aromatic fragrance.
Although the sassafras is considered a small or “understory” tree, on the Lake Michigan dunes of Indiana, where it grows out of pure shifting sands, it is a mere shrub with its stems only limber green canes.
In the South, it may reach a height of 80 feet. In this part of the country (Missouri), it will grow from 30′ to 60′ feet in height.
Origins Of Sassafras Genus
The sassafras genus of the family Lauraceae is very small. There is a species found in Southeast Asia. Our Sassafras variifolium is the only species in North America growing only in eastern North America.
The name sassafras is a corruption of the Spanish “saxifrage” which is a species of Saxifraga that is supposed to have the same “virtues” of healing. The “variifolium” describes the three kinds of leaves the tree possesses.
A common name is “mitten leaf” and another given by the early settlers is “cinnamon wood.” The Indians called it “wah-eh-nak-as” or “smelling stick.”
Good Uses Of Sassafras
The bark on the roots of the sassafras has given the tree its fame. This bark yields an oil that was once prized beyond all reason for its medicinal value. No other American tree was ever exalted for its “virtues” as this tree has been.
Oil of sassafras has never ceased to be of some importance in the manufacture of soaps and perfumes. It is also used to disguise the bad taste of some medicines and is still employed to flavor candy.
Another good use of the leaves is to dry and powder them and add a few spoonfuls to a kettle of gumbo soup for flavor and thickening. This is a real Southern custom.
The sassafras’ wood is durable in soil and water and has many uses. It is said to have less shrinkage than any other hardwood, so it is used for fence posts, boats, barrels, and fishing rods.
The odor was supposed to drive away all kinds of bugs, so the early pioneers made bedsteads from it, and cabin floors in the South were often laid in sassafras for the same reason
Worthy Place in The Home Garden
The sassafras tree is certainly worthy of a place in the home garden. When growing in its native habitat and allowed to roam,” it will sucker and grow in groups and then tend to grow narrow and upright.
Grown individually under cultivation and out in the open will make a fine tree, and the suckering habit can easily be controlled. It can be used as a background tree or lawn specimen.
The sassafras will grow in poor gravelly or sandy soil but would appreciate better-growing conditions, like almost anything else. It will tolerate shade.
It is a hard tree to transplant from the wild unless the small trees, really suckers, are cut loose from the mother tree some time ahead of transplanting to develop a better root system.
One thing in its favor is that borers never destroy the living wood of the sassafras tree.
44659 by Rebecca S. Gilliam