| Scientific Name: | Sassafras albidum |
| Common Name: | sassafras |
| Family Name: | Lauraceae |
| Origin: | Canada - eastern |
| Hardiness Zone: | Zone 4: (-34 to -29 °C) |
| Plant Type: | Tree - deciduous |
| Mature Size: | 7 - 10m x 5 - 7m (height x width) |
| Habit: | Stiffly upright |
| Form: | Pyramidal - narrowly |
| Texture: | Coarse |
| Landscape Uses: | Attract birds, Fall interest, Specimen plant, Woodland margin |
| Exposure: | Full sun, Part sun/part shade |
| Soil or Media: | Acidic, Humus rich, Rocky or gravelly or dry, Well-drained |
| Leaves: | Simple, Lobed, Alternate, Pinnate venation, Palmate venation, Glabrous, Obovate, Entire |
| Flowers: | Flowers clustered, Yellow, Green-yellow, Apr-May |
| Fruit: | Drupe, Blue, Black, Aug-Sep |
| Key ID Features: | |
| Leaves alternate, elliptic when unlobed to ovate or obovate when two or three-lobed (often on the same branch), 5-10cm wide by 10-15cm long on short petioles; florets in pendulous racemes up to 5cm long in early spring shortly before the leaves appear, yellow to greenish-yellow, with 5-6 tepals; drupes dark blue-black drupe 1cm long on a red fleshy club-shaped pedicel 2cm long, ripening in late summer. Winter ID: bark and twigs with cinnamon-like aroma when cut; alternating buds about 6mm long. | |