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Sassafras Tree 



III. SASSAFRAS TREE 



GENUS SASSAFRAS NEES AND EBERMEIR 



Species Sassafras Sassafras (Linnaeus) Karsten 



Laurus Sassafras Linnaeus Sassafras variifolium (Salisbury) Kuntze. 



Sassafras officinale Nees and Ebermeir 



HE name of this interesting tree is of Spanish origin. The genus is 

 small, one other species existing in China, though the leaves of many 

 of their ancestors have been found as fossils in rocks of recent geologic 

 epochs. It inhabits dry soil, ranging from Massachusetts to Florida. 

 Ontario, Michigan, Kansas, and Texas, sometimes reaching a height of 40 meters, 



with a trunk 2 meters in diameter or more. 

 The thick brown bark is rough and 

 ridged in irregular layers, even on quite 

 young trees. The young twigs are hairy, 

 but soon become smooth; the buds are ovoid 

 and pointed. The oval or oval-obovate 

 leaves vary from entire-margined to 3-lobed, 

 often with a lobe on one side only, and thus 

 mitten-shaped; they are thin, pirmately 

 veined, when young quite hairy but smooth 

 when fully grown; their stalks are 2.5 cm. 

 long or less. The imperfect, mostly dioe- 

 cious flowers are yellow and about 6 mm. 

 wide, borne in stalked umbelled racemes at 

 the ends of twigs and open in April or May, 

 Fig. 355. — Sassafras Tree. before or with the unfolding of the leaves; 



each umbel is subtended by several large bud-scales, which form an involucre to 

 the flower-cluster; the calyx is 6-parted; the staminate flowers have three series of 

 3 stamens each, about as long as the calyx, or 9 stamens in all, those of the iimer 

 series bearing a pair of stalked glands at the base of the filaments; the pistillate 

 flowers have 6 short sterile stamens (staminodes), an ovoid ovary, and a slender 

 style. The fruit is an oblong-globose blue drupe i to r.5 cm. long, seated in the 

 enlarged, bright red calyx-tube. 



The weak though durable wood is orange-brown, with a specific gravity ot 

 about 0.50, and is much used for fences. The tree grows rather rapidly and is 

 very desirable for lawn planting, both on accoimt of its beauty and its curious 

 leaves and flowers. Oil of Sassafras, used in perfumery, is distilled from the roots 

 and bark; the bark of the root and the mucilaginous pith of the twigs are used 

 medicinally. 



