Sassafras

Sassafras is a deciduous tree of the laurel family native to eastern North America, from southern Maine and Ontario to Florida and Texas, growing fifteen to twenty metres tall with deeply furrowed red-brown bark. It is known for carrying three shapes of leaf on one branch, unlobed, mitten-shaped and three-lobed, and for its yellowish spring flowers and dark blue fruits on red stalks. Peoples of the south-east such as the Choctaw used it as food and medicine, thickening soups with it and rubbing the leaves into wounds, and the dried, ground leaves live on as filé powder in Louisiana gumbo. European settlers took it up as a medicine: Grieve notes its early fame in Spain as a cure for syphilis and rheumatism, it was sold on London street corners as a morning drink called saloop, and its root flavoured the original root beer until the safrole in it was found to cause liver damage and cancer in laboratory animals. Ozark lore heard a coming death in sassafras wood popping on the fire. In magic Cunningham gives it to Jupiter and fire, carried in a purse or burned to draw money and added to healing sachets; Kynes adds Saturn, Venus and Leo, uses it for prosperity and protection, and notes its place in hoodoo work to attract wealth.