Sassafras is one of the first broad-leafed trees to come up in abandoned fields where seeds are dropped by birds. The tree also spreads rapidly by root suckers. It is closely related to the camphor tree of Japan. The leaves are very characteristic. It is one of the few trees with leaves of widely different shapes on the same tree or even on the same twig.
Some leaves are oval and entire.
Others have one lobe resembling the thumb on a mitten, while still others are divided at the outer end into three distinct lobes. The young leaves and twigs are quite mucilaginous. Branching is sympodial. The bark of the mature trunk is thick, red-brown, and deeply furrowed. May. Fruit is bluish-black with a red stalk and ripens in September.