SASSAFRAS AND SUMAC

      

     Sassafras and staghorn sumac are small, successional trees, native to sunny habitats in northeastern North America, including rural roadsides, pastures and woodland edges in farmland.  Both these kinds of trees are attractive, and provide food and cover for certain species of wildlife.  And both types of these trees have interesting life histories.   

     Sassafras and sumacs are most attractive in autumn when their leaves turn to warm, striking colors.  Sassafras foliage turns yellow, orange and red, while the leaves of sumacs become brilliant-red, all by October.  Both trees then beautify country roadsides and other sunny, let-go niches in cropland.

      Sassafras trees are exceptionally interesting.  Each tree has three leaf shapes, with three lobes like a wide-tonged fork, two lobes resembling mittens, and one simple lobe.  And sassafras foliage and green twigs emit a sweet scent.

     Sassafras flowers are tiny and yellow.  When fertilized by pollinating insects seeking nectar, they form blue-black, berry-like drupes, many of which are eaten by rodents and berry-eating birds during fall and winter.  The birds digest the pulp of the berries, but pass their seeds, far and wide, thus spreading sassafras trees across the landscape, and insuring food for future berry-eating birds.  

     White-tailed deer, cottontail rabbits and deer mice ingest the drupes, bark, twigs and buds of sassafras.  Those mammals, and other kinds, feed on those parts of sassafras through winter mostly.

     The caterpillars of spicebush swallowtail butterflies ingest spicebush and sassafras leaves.  Some larvae hatch on sassafras leaves, and immediately chomp on them.  As each larva gets bigger, it emits silk to wrap the leaf around itself so it can eat in relative safety.  These caterpillars are mostly green, which camouflages them on their dining tables.  And each larva has two black spots on its thorax that resemble the eyes of a larger creature, to scare away birds and other would-have-been predators.  

     The lovely sumac trees are pioneers on poor, dry, or deserted and worn-out, soil.  Sumacs help to enrich the soil they grow from with their annual dropping of foliage that decays into the ground.   

     Sumac trees have compound leaves of several drooping leaflets on each leaf.  In October, each red sumac leaf flutters beautifully in the wind, like banners waving.   

     Each female sumac grows an attractive cluster of small, green-yellow blooms at her top, which are fertilized by pollinating insects seeking nectar.  And in October, each female red-leafed sumac tree has a pyramid-shaped cluster of fuzzy, red berries on top.  Those berries are also eaten by rodents and berry-eating birds, and the birds pass sumac seeds as well.     

     Though small, native trees, sassafras and sumacs have their beauties, and provide food for some species of wildlife through the year.  And both these species are most attractive in October.