Sassafras (Sassafras albidum) is native to the entire eastern half of the United States, including all of Ohio. However, it is most frequent in the acidic soils of southeastern Ohio and predominates in more southern states with warmer winters; in both habitats, it invades fence rows, abandoned fields, and sprouts up around old barns. Sassafras is a rapidly growing colonizer and forms thickets primarily by root sprouts several feet away from the parent plant. Straight-trunked saplings may be repeatedly cut every few years to use as primitive stakes (as is done with some forms of bamboo). Oil of sassafras can be distilled from the trunk bark or roots for use in perfuming soaps, while sassafras tea is made by boiling the bark of roots. This tree can reach a height of 50 feet tall by 30 feet wide when found in the open. Its brittle green twigs have a spicy aroma when rubbed or crushed, as one would expect from a member of the laurel family, which includes the closely related spicebushes. Sassafras prefers moist, well-drained, acidic, deep soils of average quality, but adapts to soils that are neutral in pH and dry. In alkaline soils, it tends to become slightly chlorotic. It thrives in full sun to partial sun and is found in zones 4 to 9. Sassafras can have several diseases and pests, but these are usually minor or cosmetic in nature. More common problems are moderate chlorosis in high pH soils, and brittle twigs and branchlets that break off under high winds or ice loads, usually on old trees that become more gnarled with age. Sassafras has leaves that, like mulberry, are polymorphic. Most common are leaves that are single, mitten-shaped, or trilobed, but up to seven lobes may occur on the alternate, entire-margined, dark green leaves that are spicy in fragrance when rubbed or crushed. Fall color ranges from good to spectacular, and is often a blend of bright yellow, gold, orange, red, and red-purple hues in mid-autumn. Sassafras is a dioecious species, having male and female flowers on different trees. Flowers are similar, being yellow-green and opening in early spring, as the vegetative buds are just beginning to break. Pollinated female flowers give rise to clusters of elliptical small green fruits, which turn blue-black in mid-summer and are quickly eaten by wildlife. The showy red pedicels remain on the tree for several more weeks, providing ornamental appeal. Sassafras is noted for its bright green stems, which remain as green twigs for a few years as the initially smooth bark becomes a rough blend of beige and green. It also is one of the few trees whose stems readily branch in their first year of growth, without the inducement of pruning. Twigs are brittle and are easily snapped off where they join branchlets on the main trunk. Branching is whorled from the trunk and sympodial from the angled branches on young trees, becoming more irregular in pattern on mature trees. Furrows and interlacing ridges develop on older trees, with the mature bark having a gray-brown color. Reddish highlights also occur on the interior bark and from ridges that have been rubbed by bucks or cut for the harvest of bark for sassafras tea.