LAURACEAE

Sassafras

Sassafras variifolium (Salisb.) Ktse. [Sassafras sassafras (L.) Karst.] [Sassafras officinale Nees & Eberm.]

HABIT.—Usually a large shrub, but often a small tree 20-40 feet high, with a trunk diameter of 10-20 inches; stout, often contorted branches and a bushy spray form a flat, rather open crown.

LEAVES.—Alternate, simple, 3-6 inches long, 2-4 inches broad; oval to oblong or obovate; entire or 1-3-lobed with deep, broad sinuses and finger-like lobes; thin; dull dark green above, paler beneath; petioles slender, about 1 inch long.

FLOWERS.—May, with the leaves; dioecious; greenish yellow; on slender pedicels, in loose, drooping, few-flowered racemes 2 inches long; calyx deeply 6-lobed, yellow-green; corolla 0; stamens of staminate flower 9, in 3 rows, of pistillate flower 6, in 1 row; ovary 1-celled.

FRUIT.—September-October; an oblong-globose, lustrous, dark blue berry, 3/8 inch long, surrounded at the base by the scarlet calyx, borne on club-shaped, bright red pedicels.

WINTER-BUDS.—Terminal buds 1/3 inch long, ovoid, acute, greenish, soft-pubescent, flower-bearing; lateral buds much smaller, sterile or leaf-bearing. Aromatic.

BARK.—Twigs glabrous, lustrous, yellow-green, spicy-aromatic, becoming red-brown and shallowly fissured when 2-3 years old; thick, dark red-brown and deeply and irregularly fissured into firm, flat ridges on old trunks.

WOOD.—Soft, weak, brittle, coarse-grained, very durable in the soil, aromatic, dull orange-brown, with thin, light yellow sapwood.

DISTRIBUTION.—Southern portion of Lower Peninsula as far north as Grayling.

HABITAT.—Prefers well-drained, stony or sandy soil; woods; abandoned fields; peaty swamps.

NOTES.—Rapid of growth. Suckers freely. Difficult to transplant. Propagated easily from seed.