Sassafras

Description

Sassafras trees grow from 9-35 m (30-115 ft) tall with many slender sympodial branches, and smooth, orange-brown bark or yellow bark.All parts of the plants are fragrant. The species are unusual in having three distinct leaf patterns on the same plant: unlobed oval, bilobed (mitten-shaped), and trilobed (three-pronged); the leaves are hardly ever five-lobed. Three-lobed leaves are more common in sassafras tzumu and sassafras randaiense than in their North American counterparts, although three-lobed leaves do sometimes occur on sassafras albidum. The young leaves and twigs are quite mucilaginous, and produce a citrus-like scent when crushed. The tiny, yellow flowers are five-petaled; sassafras albidum and sassafras hesperia are dioecious, with male and female flowers on separate trees, while sassafras tzumu and sassafras randaiense have male and female flowers occurring on the same trees. The fruit is a drupe, blue-black when ripe. The largest known sassafras tree in the world is located in Owensboro, Kentucky, and measures over 100 feet high and 21 feet in circumference.