Insight Into The Sassafras Tree And Its Benefits
One of the first flower Sights to greet us as we ride through our beautiful Ozarks in early spring is the yellow bloom of the sassafras tree in the still bare woodlands. This bloom comes when the buds which tip each twig start to swell. Quite suddenly the tree is transformed by hundreds of compact bunches of yellow flowers in candelabra forms.
The beauty and usefulness of this tree does not stop here. It is carried on through the following seasons. In late summer there are the dark blue berries that ripen and the sassafras tree then becomes a mecca for the birds that find in them a welcome change of diet. In the fall there is the beautiful coloring of the foliage: some compare it to the autumn foliage of the sweet gum. One of the most interesting things about this tree is that it bears leaves of three forms on the same branch; first the simple ovate; second, the three lobed; and third and the most interesting, the one shaped like a mitten.
To many of us, our earliest recollections of the sassafras is the tea made from its roots that our grandparents told us about, that was given to them as children in early spring to “clear the blood.” Other early recollections may have been when we took that first spring woodland walk and plucked and munched some of the dainty green buds with their spicy, aromatic and refreshing flavor; or perhaps we dug some of the roots ourselves for that “spring tonic.”
The sassafras is a tree of the fence corners and woodland borders. It delights in neglected and abandoned fields. On one of the hilltops near our Missouri country home is an old neglected peach orchard. We can see the sassafras creeping in and “taking over” as time goes on. What a thrill it is to walk through these thickets at almost any time of the year inhaling that wonderful aromatic fragrance.
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