Sassafras is such an exotic-sounding name that I was surprised to find the plant growing not only in the woods nearby, but in my own yard.
This is a picture of a sassafras shrub from last August. It doesn’t look very interesting, but its looks are deceiving.
It’s only April right now, so the sassafras hasn’t leafed out yet for the year. I wasn’t sure which of the leafless shrubs along the side of the yard were sassafras and which weren’t, so I looked a little closer. According to my field guide, sassafras twigs are greenish, and the bark later becomes thick, brown-gray, and furrowed. The shrub in the picture below seemed to fit the bill.
The most interesting things about sassafras cannot be seen, though. Sassafras is an aromatic tree. The only way for me to be sure that the plant in the picture above was sassafras was to break off a twig and smell it. So I did, and ooh did it smell yummy!
But wait, I haven’t even gotten to the really interesting stuff yet! Sassafras roots were used traditionally to make root beer, but in 1960 the FDA determined that its oil (safrole) was carcinogenic, so it’s been disallowed for commercial food use since. The leaves, dried and ground, are used to make filé, an herb traditionally used to flavor and thicken gumbo. (I don’t know about you, but every time I hear the words “filé” and “gumbo” together, I get the song Jambalaya (On the Bayou) lodged in my head.) Sassafras is also a host plant for the spicebush swallowtail butterfly. And, safrole is used to make the illegal drug Ecstasy. (Wait, wut? OMG, and this plant has been growing mostly unnoticed in my yard for years!)
There are two things obviously missing from this story so far, however: flowers and fruit. There is a larger tree in my yard that is flowering right now. I took pictures of the flowers yesterday. Comparing them against pictures on the Internet today, I’m pretty sure that they are sassafras flowers.
I’ll be keeping an eye on this interesting plant as the year progresses. I can’t recall ever seeing any fruit in the yard that matches its description (if you want to see what the fruit looks like, there’s a picture at the bottom of the Wikipedia article, or you can see a better picture of the fruit here). But I’ve never looked for the fruit either. This year I will, not just in my yard, but in the surrounding woods. If I find any, I will definitely take pictures, and you might see this plant in another SITY post someday. In the meantime, here is a YouTube video of that earworm Jambalaya (On the Bayou). Enjoy!
You mean the wanna be tree that I keep cutting back every few years because it’s in a bad place and keeps growing back like a weed? I’ve cut down several near the stream.
Murderer!
Just kidding. There’s a ton of it, so no worries. It will keep growing back, too, just like the forsythia monster in the back yard (have you seen how big that thing has gotten?)