Sassafras

Sassafras root polyphenols including sassafrin, camphene, and eugenol have documented digestive, anti-inflammatory, and antispasmodic effects. By the 1620s, sassafras was the second-largest export from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Cherokee, Choctaw, and Iroquois peoples used sassafras root medicinally as a blood tonic, digestive stimulant, and fever remedy. The bark of the sassafras root is the concentrated source of flavor and active compounds, not the inner wood. Sassafras albidum is a deciduous tree native to the eastern United States and Canada. A sassafras tree bears three distinct leaf shapes on the same individual tree.