Sassafras (Sassafras albidum): what the agencies record

This page reports what US federal publications say about one tree. It does not identify trees from descriptions or photos and does not say what should be done with any tree. The family overview, tree species in the agency records, explains the sources and holds the comparison table.

At a glance

Item	What the source records
Scientific name	Sassafras albidum (Nutt.) Nees, laurel family (Silvics)
Other names	White sassafras (Silvics)
Native status, USDA PLANTS	Native in Canada and in the lower 48 states
Size, Silvics	Up to 30 m (98 ft) tall on the best sites; mature trees may average only 15 to 20 cm (6 to 8 in) in diameter, with a maximum of about 38 cm (15 in)
Green weight of the wood, NRS-38	44 lb per cubic foot, without bark

Native range and where it grows

The Silvics of North America handbook (Agriculture Handbook 654, 1990) gives a native range from southwestern Maine west to New York, extreme southern Ontario and central Michigan, southwest through Illinois, extreme southeastern Iowa, Missouri, southeastern Kansas, eastern Oklahoma and eastern Texas, and east to central Florida. It says that in 1990 the tree was extinct in southeastern Wisconsin and was extending its range into northern Illinois. The handbook describes it as a medium-sized, moderately fast growing, aromatic tree, little more than a shrub in the north, and largest in the Great Smoky Mountains on moist, well-drained sandy loams in open woodland.

Silvics says sassafras is found on virtually all soil types within its range, with an optimum soil pH of 6.0 to 7.0, from Mississippi River bottom lands to 1,220 m (4,000 ft) in the southern Appalachians. It pioneers abandoned fields, fence rows and dry ridges, especially after fire, and in the South Atlantic and Gulf Coast states, where soils are mostly sandy, mature sassafras seldom exceeds sapling size. It is included in only two forest cover types: Sassafras-Persimmon (Society of American Foresters Type 64), a temporary type on abandoned farmland, and as a minor part of Bear Oak (Type 43).

Leaves, flowers and fruit

The handbook describes three distinctive leaf shapes: entire, mitten-shaped and three-lobed. The species is dioecious, with greenish-yellow flowers in loose drooping racemes in March and April as the leaves unfold. The fruit is a single-seeded dark-blue drupe 8 to 13 mm (0.3 to 0.5 in) long, borne on a thickened red stalk and maturing in August and September of the first year. Seed production begins when trees approach 10 years of age and is greatest at 25 to 50 years. Birds are the principal agents of seed spread. Silvics reports that the seed usually stays dormant until spring and that germination is hypogeal.

Root sprouts, roots and shade

Silvics says reproduction from seed is sparse and erratic in woods, and that the dense thickets found in openings and old fields come from root sprouts rather than seed. On good sites sprouts may grow 3.7 m (12 ft) over a 3-year span. The handbook calls it a difficult cover type to convert to pine or other hardwoods, because the trees grow in dense stands and sprout prolifically. The roots are shallow and of the prominent lateral type, mostly 15 to 50 cm (6 to 20 in) deep, spreading laterally at the rate of 74 cm (29 in) a year. The tree is classed as intolerant of shade at all ages, and the handbook says it is one of the first species to die if overtopped in mixed stands. It also reports that chemical compounds from sassafras appear to keep annual herbs out of the understory beneath its canopy.

Wood and uses

The Wood Handbook (FPL-GTR-282, 2021) says sassafras is easily confused with black ash in color, grain and texture. The sapwood is light yellow and the heartwood varies from dull grayish brown to dark brown, sometimes with a reddish tinge. Freshly cut surfaces have a characteristic odor. The handbook calls the wood moderately heavy and moderately hard, moderately weak in bending and endwise compression, quite high in shock resistance and resistant to decay, and says it has been used for small boats, fence posts and rails, and general millwork. Silvics adds that the orange wood has been used for cooperage, buckets, posts and furniture, that tea is brewed from the bark of roots, that the leaves are used to thicken soups, and that oil of sassafras from root bark is used in the perfume industry and in some soaps. It records deer browsing the twigs in winter and the leaves in spring and summer.

Wood Handbook figure	Green	At 12% moisture content
Specific gravity (Table 5-3b)	0.42	0.46
Modulus of rupture, lbf per square inch (Table 5-3b)	6,000	9,000
Side hardness, lbf (Table 5-3b)	Not published	Not published

The green weight is in the NRS-38 table, the same figure used in the log weight calculator.

Damaging agents the handbook names

Fire and weather. The handbook calls sassafras highly susceptible to fire damage at any age, and says light fires kill reproduction and small saplings. It may die if not well protected from extremes of winter weather.
Diseases. Foliage diseases are the main damaging agents. It names Actinopelte dryina, a largely southern fungus that severely blights leaves, and a leaf spot from Mycosphaerella sassafras as among the most widely occurring. Nectria canker on trunks is fairly common in the southern Appalachians, and the handbook notes that few reports of wood-rot fungi on sassafras have appeared in the literature.
Insects. At least 15 species attack sassafras, and Silvics calls damage relatively unimportant except for small local outbreaks. From New York to Florida the larvae of a wood-boring weevil kill trees up to 25 cm (10 in) in diameter. The gypsy moth and a looper feed on the leaves, and Silvics says sassafras is probably one of the favorite forest tree foods of the Japanese beetle. The spongy moth page sets out what the agencies record for that moth.

For who takes reports of regulated pests, see reporting a pest in the United States, and pests and diseases by country sets out which ones agencies regulate.