Sassafras I

Springtime in the Blue Ridge

Springtime in the mountains is a wondrous thing to behold as all of nature rushes to renew itself.  If you are lucky enough to begin your journey near one of the foothills or in a hollow, you just might find a creek overflowing with rushing water to guide you into the mountain and up to its very top.

Look carefully at your surroundings; be careful where you step as the whole world is in the process of renewing itself at this time of year.  If you only look to see the filtering sunlight through the redbud bloom you just might miss seeing the lethargic snake which is blending in amid the rock and last winter's leaves that you are about to put your foot upon.

Sassafras trees are found in the eastern United States, from Canada to Florida, and also in Mexico.   This tree has a unique leaf pattern in that it produces leaves of three different shapes on the same tree. 

Some of our early local farmers saw the sassafras tree as a nuisance as it was normally found cluttering the cleared, "old Indian fields" which they needed for cropland.  Others believed that its wood would prevent chicken lice.  They used it to build their hen houses and the roosts for the chickens to perch on at night. Some believed that if it was burned, someone would die when the wood cracked and sputtered.

Regardless of whatever this tree was used for, everyone knew of its magical healing properties when the roots were chopped into pieces and used to make a springtime tea.  The tea was a tonic that was very well known by many of our nation's Native Americans.  The Cherokee used sassafras to purify the blood.  They also used it for a wide variety of other ailments including skin diseases, rheumatism and ague [a malarial fever characterized by regularly returning paroxysms, marked by successive cold, hot, and sweating fits, accompanied by malaise, pains in the bones and joints].  Some Native American tribes built their dugout canoes from sassafras wood.  Cajun folk use the sassafras leaves to make gumbo.  Sassafras is referred to the as the "Ague Tree" in many cultures.

There are two varieties of sassafras:
1. White sassafras grown in thick clusters from the three to six feet tall.  It has basically the same characteristics as red sassafras, but the bark does not turn pink nor red when the root is damaged.
2. Red sassafras is the most prized variety.  It is generally found on hills and ridges.  In the mountains it usually reaches a height of thirty plus feet.

In Montgomery County, Ohio is a specimen which is ninety feet tall and has a diameter of almost three and one half feet.  In Owensboro, Kentucky there is a one hundred foot sassafras tree with a circumference of twenty-one feet [seven yards] that is believed to be over three hundred years old.[1]

Sign for the tree below. 

Largest sassafras tree in the United States

I have found records where it has been determined that some sassafras trees have lived to be over one thousand years of age.  Can you imagine the tales they could tell if they could only speak?

William Bartram in his, "Observations on the Creek and Cherokee Indians Food Traditions,"[2] stated that "the country people of Carolina chop the vines [Bigonia Crucigera] to pieces together with china brier and sassafras roots, and boil them in their beer in the spring, for diet drink, in order to attenuate and purify the blood and juices." Perhaps this is the source which influenced early white settlers to make a beer by boiling young sassafras shoots in water, adding molasses and allowing this mixture to ferment.

Before the Jamestown settlement in Virginia, a company was formed in Bristol, England which sent two ships to the New World with the purpose of returning with cargoes of sassafras bark.  This was most probably due to the investigations made by either Raleigh's men or  the Roanoke colonists. Sassafras was the first forest product exported from what is now the mid-Atlantic region.  Sassafras most certainly smells like springtime itself.  Can you imagine sailing with a whole ship load?

Sassafras in the fall. 

The Cherokee made poultices to cleanse sores and wounds; they steeped the root bark and used it as a treatment for diarrhea or for "over-fatness."  The Cherokee emphasized that sassafras tea should never be taken for more than a week at a time.  Even though they were unaware of the word, "safrole" they were very attuned to the effects of the long term use of sassafras.

In the early 1960's, sassafras was pulled from the American market due to the fact that the bark on the sassafras root contains violate oils, eighty per cent of which is "safrole" which was proven to cause liver cancer in rats and mice when given in large doses.

Sassafras tea set upon a sassafras leaf designed quilt.

An Early Recipe for Sassafras Tea

Two to three sassafras roots chopped in pieces two or three inches long.  One quart of water. Boil roots in water until water is dark in color.  Remove from the heat and strain into a gallon crock or pot.  Sweeten to taste.  Note - roots maybe boiled over and over for several days as the flavor increases with repeat boilings.  Roots should be gathered in spring before sap rises.  [A necessary disclaimer: It is important to remember that the United States federal government banned the use of Sassafras in the early 1960's; therefore, this recipe is being given only as a historic note about how our families once lived and not as a recommended form of medicine.]

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Sources:

[1] The National Forestry Association’s National Register.

[2] Bartram, William.  Observations on the Creek and  Cherokee Indians food traditions. Transaction of the American Ethnological Society.  Vol. 3. 1789.
e American Ethnological Society.  Vol. 3. 1789.