Sassafras in my experience were 25 feet tall even after 30 years. The leaves are still used for gumbo and many still use the roots for tea but its not approved of or legally sold. It was in rootbeer and other things. https://growingfruit.org/t/making-homemade-sodapop-from-scratch/40150/3
Ok back to the question of where do you get them? Ebay is a great source for them. They should be $3 - $10 each because inflation is pretty high in 2022.
Sassafras trees were once very common here. Now it’s difficult to find live healthy ones. Something is killing them ?
Here is one of the biggest ones I have seen , on the Ohio university campus in Athens Ohio
Wow yes they dont get that big in the places in missouri where i see most of them. How old do you suppose they are? @Derby42 what is your experience in your location with sassafras. Sounds like the further south you go they get bigger.
The older trees are likely 40 or so years old. I’m going to cut timber sometime in the next 5 years and will probably take them out at that time. They are not very valuable, especially as compared with the white oak and red oak trees that grow in abundance. I have a few white oaks that are good enough I am considering harvesting acorns and setting up a nursery for seedlings to re-plant.
I also have several large hemlock trees that will be harvested. My land is in an area with the southernmost population of Canadian Hemlock, a remnant from the last ice age.
Safrole is a serious carcinogen. The ban in the U.S. also stopped the agricultural use of sassafras oil spray as an insecticide. Afterwards, the chemical industry isolated the non-carcinogenic insecticide Piperonyl Butoxide from sassafras and began producing it synthetically. It is the main active ingredient in Ortho Fruit Shrub Tree Spray and Evergreen EC 60-6.
