Sassafras
The sassafras grows wild from Massachusetts to Florida, and west through the Mississippi Valley. It is generally a small tree, from thirty to fifty feet high, and is often found growing in dense thickets in uncultivated fields. The edible bark is dark red-brown. It is thick but not hard and is deeply ridged and scaled. The cracked bark is one of the characteristics of the tree; it begins to split when the tree is about three years old. The strong aromatic flavor is held by the bark, the wood, the roots, the stems, and the leaves. I have never tasted the fruit, which is berry-like, dark blue, and glossy, and is held by a thick, scarlet calyx; but the birds are fond of it.
Sassafras tea was at one time considered the best of spring medicines for purifying the blood, and the bark was brought to market cut in short lengths and tied together in bunches.
The leaves are varied; on one twig there will sometimes be three differently shaped leaves. Some will be oval, some with three lobes, and some mitten-shaped; that is, an oval leaf with a side lobe like the thumb of a mitten.