the mitten-shaped leaves from the sassafras tree, then snap their stems and inhale the warm spicy sweetness. Once a guest here dug up a root and we made sassafras tea and talked about how root beer, made with sassafras, used to be actual alcoholic beer, and that sassafras twigs used to be toothbrushes, and it's good for lots of other stuff. Like what, I wondered today, and looked up all sorts of lore:
- Every part of the tree is fragrant.
- A ship, boat, or bed made of sassafras wood will keep evil spirits away.
- Tuck a leaf in your wallet or business till to stretch the money you already have. I tucked leaves between the checkbook's and account book's pages.
- It's lucky to carry some dried sassafras root with you when seeking a job.
- Rub the leaves on wounds or skin eruptions as an antiseptic and anti-bacterial treatment. That'll probably work better if the leaves haven't turned their autumn yellow.
- Sassafras tea is a "toner," meaning it will enhance health. The U.S. banned it in 1960 but it has been legally available since 1994. The safrole in sassafras was carcinogenic in rats given huge doses. It is now thought that no human can ingest that much safrole even if they tried, and nutmeg contains safrole too. Most store-bought sassafras drinks use artificial flavor.
- Dried sassafras leaves, ground up, make that "file" stuff without which gumbo is not gumbo.
- Woodpeckers and wild turkeys like the fruits.
- There used to be a huge sassafras industry: American sassafras was exported to Europe, where the tree is not native. Europeans liked the wood for ships and furniture. They also used sassafras as a cure for syphilis.
- Germans used to call it "fennel wood."
- Sassafras is the "triple goddess" tree because any one plant can have three kinds of leaves: ovate, single-lobed, and multi-lobed.
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