Native Tree · Woodland Edge

Spring · Summer · Fall

Sassafras (Sassafras albidum) grows along the woodland edges at Dark Hollow, spreading through root suckers to form dense colonial thickets over time — the same roots historically dug and boiled down for traditional root beer. We harvest the root bark for tea and file the dried leaves into gumbo filé powder. In the wild system it's an early pioneer species that colonizes disturbed ground, offers its flowers as an early pollen source for bees, and its fruit feeds birds like thrushes and woodpeckers through late summer.