In the heat of summer, the woods I grew up in smelled like pine. Brown pine needles lay thick on the path, and in the dappled sun hung the bright green leaves of sassafras. We picked the leaves—mitten-shaped, oval, or like a small hand with three wide fingers—to chew as we walked. The leaf and stem have a spicy, sweet smell. Sassafras, which is native to North America, also has brilliant fall color and unusual green-yellow flowers in the spring. In our woods, sassafras was a small tree—barely 15 feet tall—but in other places it commonly grows to 40 or even 80 feet tall.
Common name: Sassafras
Botanical name: Sassafras albidum
Plant type: Deciduous tree
Zones: 4 to 8
Height: To 80 feet tall and 50 feet wide; often smaller
• Sun: Full sun to part shade
• Soil: Rich, humusy, acidic, well-drained
• Moisture: Average to moist
• Mulch: Mulch to help keep soil moist.
• Pruning: S. albidum will sucker. If left alone, it will form a colony. The suckers can also make individual trees look shrubby. To maintain a single trunk, remove suckers as they appear.
• Fertilizer: None needed.
• By seed
Pests and diseases
• Not especially vulnerable to pests or diseases.
• Sassafras grows in woods and fields and along roadsides. It often forms large colonies. Plant sassafras where you want to start a forest, establish a transition to woodlands, or create a natural screen.
• S. albidum is also a good specimen tree, if you keep the suckers under control.
• If male and female trees are growing in the same area, the female trees will develop blue-black berries on red stalks.
• Though sassafras leaves are flavorful, be aware that in 1960, the FDA banned sassafras oil and safrole (an essential oil produced from sassafras root bark) from food and drugs. Studies showed they caused liver damage and cancer in animals.
All in the family
• Sassafras is one of the few deciduous genera in Lauraceae, the laurel family. Most of the other genera are aromatic evergreens.
• Familiar species in the laurel family include cinnamon, avocado, bay laurel, and spicebush.
(Text by Elizabeth Noll, photo of Sassafras albidum courtesy of the Kemper Center for Home Gardening at the Missouri Botanical Garden.)