sassafras

sassafras (SAS-uh-fras) - n., an American tree (Sassafras albidum) with irregularly lobate leaves and aromatic leaves, bark, and roots; the bark of the root of this plant, used medicinally and formerly as a flavoring.


Specifically, it's the root of root beer. Formerly, because it is banned in the United States (and elsewhere?) as a suspected carcinogen, which means it's impossible to buy real root beer commercially -- you can still make it yourself, if you live in the eastern United States or Canada (or someplace it's been imported to). Irregularly lobate because any given leaf can have two, one, or no lobes, even on a given plant:


Thanks, WikiMedia!

The name is, interestingly, from Spanish sasafrás (or possibly French sassafras), both from Late Latin saxifragia, stone-breaker, apparently from some trees growing through cracks in a boulder (they'll grow just about anywhere), which makes it a cognate of the herb saxifrage.

For the record, the leaf buds are as yummy as actual root beer.

---L.