The flowers are clustered, greenish, yellow, and open with the first unfolding of the leaves. The staminate and pistillate flowers are usually on different trees. The fruit is an oblong, dark blue or black, lustrous berry, containing one seed and surrounded at the base by what appears to be a small orange-red or scarlet cup at the end of a scarlet stalk.
The wood is light, soft, weak, brittle, and durable in the soil; the heartwood is dull orange-brown. It is used for posts, rails, boat building, cooperage and for ox-yokes. The bark of the roots yields the very aromatic oil of sassafras much used for flavoring candies and various commercial products.
The sassafras deserves more consideration than it has received as a shade and ornamental tree. The autumnal coloring of its foliage is scarcely surpassed by any tree, and it is very free from insect pests.
SWEET GUM Liquidambar styraciflua L.
THE sweet or red gum is a very common tree on low lands in southern Illinois, but it is seldom found north of Jackson County in the west or north of Richland in the east. It is usually abundant in old fields or in cut-over woods. The bark is a light gray, roughened by corky scales, later becoming deeply furrowed. After the second year the twigs often develop 2 to 4 corky projections of the bark, which give them a winged appearance.
SWEET GUM
Leaf, one-third natural size. Twig, two-thirds natural size.