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Revision as of 11:07, 23 April 2018
Sassafras is a genus of three extant and one extinct species of deciduous trees in the family Lauraceae, native to eastern North America and eastern Asia.[1] The genus is distinguished by its aromatic properties, which have made the tree useful to humans.
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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.[1]
The largest known sassafras tree in the world is located in Owensboro, Kentucky, and measures over 100 feet high and 21 feet in circumference.
Uses
- All parts of sassafras plants, including roots, stems, twig leaves, bark, flowers, and fruit, have been used for culinary, medicinal, and aromatic purposes, both in areas where they are endemic and in areas where they were imported, such as Europe. The wood of sassafras trees has been used as a material for building ships and furniture in China, Europe, and the United States, and sassafras played an important role in the history of the European colonization of the American continent in the 16th and 17th centuries. Sassafras twigs have even been used as toothbrushes or fire starters.
- Sassafras leaves and flowers have also been used in salads, and to flavor fats or cure meats.
- Numerous Native American tribes used the leaves of sassafras to treat wounds by rubbing the leaves directly into a wound and used different parts of the plant for many medicinal purposes such as treating acne, urinary disorders, and sicknesses that increased body temperature, such as high fevers.
- Sassafras wood and oil were both used in dentistry. Early toothbrushes were crafted from sassafras twigs or wood because of its aromatic properties. Sassafras was also used as an early dental anesthetic and disinfectant.
