This week: Spectacular Sassafras
Hello!
Sassafras trees (Sassafras albidum) rank very near the top of my list of favorite trees. When I was a kid, Sassafras trees were fascinating because of their three distinct leaf shapes, and because they were traditionally used to make root beer. Little did I know that was just the start of this native tree’s merits.
Fantastic Foliage
The quirk of the Sassafras tree’s foliage is that it has three leaf shapes on a single tree: an oval-shaped simple leaf, a mitten leaf with two lobes, and a three-lobed leaf. This makes them one of the easiest trees to identify. They also stand out in the fall, because the leaves turn brilliant shades of yellow, orange, and red.
The leaves are also larval hosts for butterflies, including the Tiger Swallowtail, Palamedes, Pale Swallowtail, and Spicebush Swallowtail. Wildlife, such as deer and bears, browse the foliage. Trees with female flowers produce berries that attract tons of songbirds who also nest in their branches.
The Many Uses of Sassafras
Dried ground Sassafras leaves, called filé, are used in Creole and Cajun cooking, and especially in gumbo. Filé originated from Choctaw cuisine. Indigenous uses of Sassafras were not limited to culinary purposes; it also had ceremonial and medicinal uses. Its medicinal qualities—it was used to treat a wide range of ailments from deworming to fevers and eye irritation—created so much demand among Europeans that it became one of the Virginia Colony’s cash crops, right alongside tobacco. Sassafras is still used in folk medicine today.
However, commercial root beer has been artificially flavored since the 1970s. Traditional recipes for root beer called for the bark of the Sassafras root, which contains safrole. When ingested in large amounts, safrole may cause liver damage. It’s also an ingredient in the production of MDMA, hence why it has fallen out of favor with the FDA.
So You Want to Grow Sassafras…
Now that Sassafras has become one of your favorite trees, you’ll probably want to grow it. It’s a fast-growing, medium-sized tree that reaches 40 feet and does well in full sun to part shade. This tree can also be cut back nearly to the ground every few years to create a more shrub-like specimen. This is called coppicing, and is an agriforestry technique that can be used to farm filé.
The tree is suckering, so it will eventually want to form a grove. Cutting back the suckers will maintain a single trunk form. Unfortunately, this gorgeous specimen is uncommon in the nursery trade because of its deep taproot, which makes it difficult to transplant. It is best to acquire seed-grown plants when they are young, or to transplant suckers from someone who already has the tree on their property.
Elsewhere:
Wild Ones is offering a free webinar featuring Larry Weaner, a leader in ecological landscape design, on November 20 at 7 pm. A few years ago, he spoke at Phipps Conservatory and ran a workshop, and it was easily the most informative native gardening educational experience I’ve had yet. Register and learn about how he gardens his own property!
Have a good week,
Julie