I know I've written about Sassafras before, but this picture is so perfect, I'm going to write about it again.  

 

I want you to notice the three different leaf shapes.  There are only a few trees that do this.  Look at the leaves at the top of the picture first.  They have three lobes. Now look at the bottom leaf with its two lobes, looking like a mitten.  And beside that one is a leaf with a single lobe.  This is very typical of Sassafras.  Three different leaf shapes on the same tree.  Mulberry does it too, but I know of no others.  

 

Sassafras albidum is a native tree in the central and eastern United States, and is prominent in our woods.  It grows 10-50 feet tall, some up to 90 feet.  It blooms in early March with fuzzy yellow flowers, and bears striking blue-black fruits with red stalks in midsummer.  In the fall, the leaves turn fabulous shades of bronze-orange to clear red and yellow.  

 

All parts of Sassafras have been utilized by humans.  Here are a few examples.  The roots have long been used to make a spring tonic tea, and to flavor root beer.  These practices have died out recently (well, the last 50 years) with the indication that the active ingredient may be carcinogenic.  The finely powdered dried leaves become filé, used as flavoring and a thickener in Louisiana cuisine, namely gumbo.   The aromatic, insect repellent wood was once used for bedposts and chicken roosts. During a brief period in the early 17th century, sassafras was the second-largest export from the British colonies in North America behind tobacco.  

 

The birds love the berries, the deer love to browse the leaves, and spicebush swallowtail and tiger swallowtail butterflies use Sassafras as HOST plants for their larvae.

 

What a great tree, Sassafras.  Look for it.

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!