Sassafras Tree Nature Guide: Identification, Fun Facts & Free Printable for Kids
Sassafras is one of my favorite trees to teach children about because it has three different leaf shapes that kids are always fascinated by! In the fall, its leaves turn beautiful shades of yellow, orange, and red, making it one of MY favorite trees to observe this time of year!
Next time you’re on a walk, look for a tree with leaves that seem like they don't belong on the same tree. One leaf may be oval and look like an egg, another like a mitten, and another like a little dinosaur foot!. You don't need to know everything about nature to teach your child. Spend a few minutes looking closely together. Count the lobes, trace the veins, feel the bark, look under the leaves, and search for signs that animals have been eating.
Sassafras is a native tree of eastern North America and one of the most fun trees for children to learn to recognize.
Observe the leaf shapes
Look for:
The egg: An unlobed leaf, a leaf with no large sections sticking out from its sides. It is oval or egg-shaped and usually has a pointed tip.
The mitten: A leaf with two lobes, large sections of the leaf separated by a deep indentation. One lobe forms the main part of the “mitten,” while the smaller side lobe looks like a thumb. The thumb can occur on either side.
The dinosaur foot: A three-lobed leaf, with a long center lobe and one lobe on each side. Children may think it looks like a dinosaur footprint, a three-fingered hand, or a mitten with two thumbs.
Unlike many familiar leaves, sassafras has an entire margin, meaning the outer edge is generally smooth.
Try this: On your next walk count how many mittens, eggs and dinosaur feet you can find.
Follow the veins
Now hold a leaf up to the light. Look for the midrib, the large central vein running from the base toward the tip. Smaller lateral veins, veins that branch away from the main vein, spread through the leaf. On a lobed leaf, have your child trace the veins with one finger toward each lobe. The veins act as part of the leaf's transport system, moving water and minerals into the leaf and carrying sugars made during photosynthesis, the process plants use to make sugars using light energy, away from the leaf.
Look for a Folded Leaf!
Sassafras is a host plant, a plant that a caterpillar uses for food and development, for the beautiful spicebush swallowtail. A female butterfly can detect suitable host leaves with sensory receptors on her legs and lay her eggs on them. The caterpillar uses silk to pull part of a leaf into a fold, creating a shelter where it can hide. It comes out to feed on the sassafras leaves.
Sassafras also supports caterpillars of other moths and butterflies, including the imperial moth and eastern tiger swallowtail. Japanese beetles and several other leaf-feeding insects also eat sassafras foliage.
Ask your child: “Why do you think this leaf is folded?” or “Who took a bite out of this leaf?”
Look for the Blue-Black Fruits
In late summer and early fall, look carefully for small, dark blue to blue-black fruits. Each is a drupe, a fleshy fruit containing a single seed, and is about ⅓–½ inch long. The dark fruit sits on a thick, bright red stalk called a pedicel, the small stem that holds an individual fruit.
The fruits are an important high-energy food for wildlife. Birds that eat sassafras fruits include great crested flycatchers, eastern kingbirds, gray catbirds, red-eyed vireos, northern flickers, pileated woodpeckers, downy woodpeckers, wild turkeys and mockingbirds.
Birds also help the tree reproduce. After eating the fruit, they can carry its seed away from the parent tree. This is seed dispersal, the movement of seeds away from the plant that produced them. Birds are major dispersers of sassafras seeds.
Who Else Eats Sassafras?
White-tailed deer browse the leaves and tender growth during spring and summer and eat twigs during winter. Woodchucks and rabbits can browse sassafras, and rabbits may eat its bark during winter. Beavers have also been documented cutting sassafras stems.
Sassafras tree is an important part of a food web, the network of feeding relationships connecting plants and animals in an ecosystem.
Feel the Bark
Young sassafras bark can be smooth and green. As the tree ages, the bark becomes reddish-brown to gray-brown and develops increasingly noticeable ridges and furrows, raised strips of bark separated by grooves. Older stems can become deeply furrowed and irregularly divided into broad ridges.
Ask your child: “Is the bark smooth or rough? Can you find a ridge? Can you find a groove? What colors do you see?”
Sassafras Leaf Color
Sassafras is especially beautiful in fall! Its green summer leaves can change to yellow, gold, orange and red, sometimes with several colors appearing on the same tree.
This is a perfect time to collect already-fallen leaves and sort them by shape: egg, mitten and dinosaur foot. Sort them by color and shape.
Sassafras Smell
Gently crush or rub a fallen leaf between your fingers and smell it. Sassafras has a strong, sweet, spicy scent that people often compare to root beer, citrus, and warm spices. The twigs and bark are also aromatic.
Did You Know? Sassafras Was Once Used to Flavor Root Beer!
Sassafras was one of the traditional flavors used in early American root beer. In the 1800s, root beer recipes often combined sassafras with other roots, herbs, and spices to make a fizzy drink.
Sassafras naturally contains safrole, a chemical found especially in its roots and root bark. After studies found that large amounts of safrole caused cancer in laboratory animals, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned safrole and sassafras oil containing safrole from use as food additives in 1960. Today, commercial root beer gets its familiar flavor from other ingredients or from sassafras extracts with the safrole removed.
TRY THIS ON YOUR NEXT WALK
Find one sassafras and spend five minutes investigating it. Look for the egg, mitten and dinosaur-foot leaves. Count the lobes. Trace a vein with your finger. Feel the bark. Search for a folded caterpillar shelter or a chewed leaf. In late summer, look for blue-black fruits on red stalks. In fall, compare the different leaf colors.
You don't need to know the name of every bug, bird or mark you find. Start by teaching your child to look closely, notice differences, ask questions and wonder what happened there. Those few minutes can turn an ordinary walk into a nature lesson.
Sassafras Leaf Clay Ornament
One of my favorite fall activities we did during Little Hikers was making sassafras leaf ornaments from air-dry clay! Roll out a small ball of air-dry clay and place a fallen sassafras leaf on top, with its raised veins facing down. Gently press the leaf into the clay, then carefully peel it away to reveal the leaf's shape and veins. Cut around the impression and make a small hole at the top for a ribbon. Once the clay is completely dry, let your child paint it using yellow, orange, or red fall colors. Add a ribbon and hang it on your Christmas tree!
Want to teach your child about sassafras? Download your free Sassafras Nature Guide and take it along on your next nature walk!
Come learn about local trees, plants, insects, and wildlife with Little Hikers Long Island during our outdoor nature classes! View Classes