Leaves are alternate and have lobed, mitten-shaped, or entire margins. Flowers are polygamous, or dioecious, in several-flowered racemes.
Fruit is a drupe.
Branches and foliage are fragrant when crushed. Branching is sympodial. May. Fruit is bluish-black with a red stalk and ripens in September. The sassafras is a small, aromatic tree usually not over 40 feet in height or a foot in diameter. It is common throughout the state on dry soils but rarer in the northern half.