SASSAFRAS
(Sassafras Sassafras)

The French settlers in Florida were the first white men to give the name sassafras to this tree, but the Indians called it by that name long before. It was a tree which Indians were sure to name, because it had an individuality which appealed to them. It is not known what the real meaning of the word was, when the southern Indians used it. After the French adopted the name in Florida, it passed to other colonies and other languages, and has led to numerous disputes since. Many have erroneously supposed that the name is of Latin origin. When the English colony was founded at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, the tree was well known by that name, but it was pronounced so variously and spelled in so many ways that it was often almost unrecognizable. It is pronounced variously and spelled differently yet. It is called sassafras in most regions, and in others is saxifrax, sassafas, sassafac, sassafrac, and saxifrax tree.

Its range covers the territory from Massachusetts to Iowa and Kansas, and south to Florida and Texas. Some of that range it has occupied for vast periods of time, for sassafras leaves have been found embedded in the Cretaceous formations of Long Island. Near the northern limit of its range it is generally small, often of brush size; but further south it becomes a tree which sometimes exceeds 100 feet in height, and three or four in diameter. The best development of the species is in Arkansas and Missouri.

Sassafras belongs to the laurel family. Strangely enough, the two trees which are usually supposed to be typical laurels—namely, mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia) and great rhododendron, do not belong to the laurel family, but the heath family. The laurel family to which sassafras belongs includes many species in all parts of the world, some are evergreen, others are not, but all characterized by the strong, pungent odor of their wood or bark, and all having fruit with a single seed like a plum or cherry. The camphor tree from the distillation of whose wood commercial camphor (except synthetic camphor made largely from turpentine) is derived, belongs to this family, as do certain bay trees of the southern states. It was formerly supposed that sassafras existed only in the eastern half of the United States; but a species closely resembling ours, if not identical with it, has recently been found in China. The California laurel (Umbellularia californica) is in the same family with sassafras.

This tree has had a peculiar history. It was once supposed to possess miraculous healing powers, and was shipped from Virginia to England in one of the first cargoes to go to that country from the present territory of the United States. Its supposed value did not consist in its use as lumber, but in some medicinal property which it was reputed to possess. People appeared to believe that it would renew the youth of the human race. Some portion of this superstition has clung round sassafras to this day, and it is not entirely confined to ignorant people. Bedsteads made of sassafras were supposed to drive away certain nightly visitors which disturb slumber. In southeastern Arkansas and northwestern Mississippi, bedsteads are still made of this wood, with the belief that sleep will be sounder. The same custom doubtless prevails elsewhere. In northern Louisiana floors of sassafras are occasionally laid in negro cabins because of the same superstition, and in the firm belief that it will keep out animals as large as rats and mice. Some of the mountaineers of Kentucky, where each family makes its own soap, insist that the kettle must be stirred with a sassafras stick or it will produce a poor quality of soap. Among the mountains of West Virginia many a farmer equips his henhouse with sassafras poles for roosts, fully convinced that he has put an effective quietus on all tribes, shoals, and kindred of menopon pallidum, and the hens will sleep better.

The production of sassafras oil is perhaps the largest industry dependent upon this tree. Roots are grubbed by the ton and are subjected to destructive distillation. Much of this work is carried on in Virginia where sassafras spreads quickly into abandoned fields, springing up from seeds carried by birds. Veritable thickets soon take possession. Here is where the sassafras oil supply comes from. Contractors often clear the old fields and make them ready for tillage, taking the roots for pay.

The wood weighs 31.42 pounds per cubic foot; is very durable when exposed to dampness; is slightly aromatic; inclined to check in drying; the layers of annual growth are marked by rings of large pores; summerwood is quite distinct from the earlier growth; medullary rays are many and thin; color dull orange-brown, the thin sapwood light yellow.

Sassafras goes to sawmills in all regions where it is large enough for lumber, but the total cut is small. Reports from sawmills in 1909 credited this species with only 25,000 feet in the United States, and it was still less in 1910. It is evident that this is only a small portion of the total output, and probably Tennessee alone produces that much. The wood is sold with other species and loses its name, frequently passing as ash. The wood bears considerable resemblance to ash, in grain and color, but is lighter in weight, and much lower in strength.

Sassafras was one of the canoe woods of early times along the lower Mississippi and its tributaries. Its two principal advantages over most woods with which it was associated was its light weight and lasting qualities. Canoes of this timber in Louisiana have given continued service for a third of a century.

In all parts of its range, wherever it is of sufficient size, it has been used for posts. It is generally considered good for about twenty years. Large trunks were formerly split for rails, and a few are utilized in that way still, but most timber large enough for rails, now goes to sawmills. In Texas most of the sassafras supplied by sawmills is manufactured into furniture, but is listed as ash. The same thing is done in Arkansas and Missouri, but the use in the latter state is extended to interior house finish and office and bank fixtures. Sometimes it is made the outside wood, and the figure caused by sawing the logs tangentially is accentuated by stains and fillers. The figure of quarter-sawed wood is not attractive because the medullary rays are too small. It lasts well as railroad ties and a few are found in service in many parts of the tree’s range, but those who see it in the track are liable to mistake it for chestnut.

A by-product of sassafras deserves mention—tea made from the flowers or from the bark of the roots. It is relished in the early spring, and is popular in most regions where the tree is known. The bark is a commercial commodity. It is tied in small bundles, and the price at retail ranges from a nickel to a dime each. Drug stores and grocers sell it. In the city of Washington in early spring sassafras peddlers canvas the city from center to circumference. They are generally negro men and women who dig the roots on the neighboring hills of Virginia and Maryland, strip the bark, tie it in small bundles, and by diligence and perseverance, succeed in converting the merchandise into money.

Sassafras is often cited as an example of a tree with leaves of different forms. Three shapes are common, and all frequently occur on the same tree, and even on the same twig. One has no lobes, another has one lobe like the thumb of a mitten, and another has three.

Lancewood (Ocotea catesbyana) is a small evergreen tree, looks much like laurel, and grows in southern Florida, on the islands and on the mainland in the vicinity of Biscayne bay. It is closely related to sassafras, and the bark has an aromatic odor. It belongs to a group of trees with nearly 200 species scattered in hot regions of both hemispheres. This is the only one belonging to the United States, and it appears to be a newcomer on these shores, from the fact that it has succeeded in obtaining so limited a foothold. It keeps well south of the region where it is likely to be frosted and it seldom exceeds a height of thirty feet and a diameter of eighteen inches. The fruit ripens in autumn and is dark blue with flesh thin and dry. The wood is hard, heavy, strong, checks badly in drying, and has a rich brown color, the sapwood being yellow. Rings of annual growth are marked with many small, regularly-distributed open ducts; medullary rays are thin and numerous; wood weighs 47.94 pounds per cubic foot; durable in contact with the soil, beautifully colored, and is highly prized for small cabinet work and novelties. At Miami, Florida, small trunks cut on neighboring hummocks, or brought from the keys, are worked into souvenirs to be sold to visitors. Lancewood fishing rods are among the strongest and most expensive on the market; but little of the material of which they are made grows in Florida. It is also manufactured into billiard cues and small handles.