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Discover Nature
Candice Davis

Sassafras trees score touchdowns with fun football themes

Posted Tuesday, October 6, 2015, at 10:53 AM

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  • Up until the mid 60s, we had three large "stand-alone" deciduous trees growing in an open hay field nearby. They were approx. 50 feet tall and had rough, furrowed bark, large single lobed leaves that turned a deep brick red in the fall and their stems tasted exactly like sassafras leaves do. As time went on, they gradually succumbed to lightning strikes and wind-storms. Along this same field's edges, stands of "normal" sassafras trees grew in groves and had the typical one, two and three lobed leaves, were much shorter, growing to thirty feet max. and the fall colors were your usual yellows, oranges and reds. My quandry is, these large trees exibited many differences to run of the mill sassafras (all literature points to only one species in eastern North America), but in my estimation, were definitely a "grandpa" sassafras type. Does this species morph somewhat as (or if) they grow to a super old age? The regular sassafras generally died out as they approached 25-30 feet without apparent reason and were replaced by smaller ones in sequence. These "mystery sassafras" trees, as mentioned, remained healthy until they were all destroyed. Does anyone know what's up here??

    -- Posted by parid53 on Tue, Oct 27, 2015, at 10:04 AM
  • parid53:

    Leaf shapes in adult trees can vary from younger ones. Sassafras can certainly reach heights of 60 feet, according to the MDC's Trees of Missouri Field Guide. The fence-row trees may have died off due to over-crowding. The guide book says sassafras trees occur on the borders of dry woods, glades, and prairies; in bottomland soils; and idle fields and fencerows. So it sounds like you had three large healthy adult sassafras trees.

    -- Posted by josh.hartwig on Fri, Oct 30, 2015, at 11:33 AM