Sassafras albidum(Nutt.) Nees

sassafras

WFO wfo-0001071258 Accepted WFO 2026-06 7 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–g

Sassafras albidum, photographed by Mark Apgar
fig. a Mark Apgar, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-11 / obs. 205222565
Sassafras albidum, photographed by jyoung2399
fig. b jyoung2399, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204205576
Sassafras albidum, photographed by Raven Dandridge
fig. c Raven Dandridge, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204274695
Sassafras albidum, photographed by Mark Apgar
fig. d Mark Apgar, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203638283
Sassafras albidum, photographed by Mark Apgar
fig. e Mark Apgar, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205223614
Sassafras albidum, photographed by Annie Weissman
fig. f Annie Weissman, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203522612
Sassafras albidum, photographed by NC Moth Project
fig. g NC Moth Project, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 204264919

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Flowering n = 1,239 observations

Peak flowering in Apr, from 1,239 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 22 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Laurus albida Nutt.
  • Laurus albida Loudon ex Meisn.
  • Laurus diversifolia Stokes
  • Laurus salsafraz Noronha
  • Laurus sassafras L.
  • Laurus variifolia Salisb.
  • Persea sassafras (L.) Spreng.
  • Sassafras albidum f. moldenkei Oswald
  • Sassafras albidum var. albidum
  • Sassafras albidum var. molle (Raf.) Fernald
  • Sassafras laurus Macloskie
  • Sassafras officinale T.Nees & C.H.Eberm.
  • Sassafras officinale var. albidum (Nutt.) S.F.Blake
  • Sassafras officinalis T.Nees & C.H.Eberm.
  • Sassafras officinarum J.Presl
  • Sassafras rubrum Raf.
  • Sassafras sassafras (L.) H.Karst.
  • Sassafras triloba Raf.
  • Sassafras triloba var. mollis Raf.
  • Sassafras variifolium Kuntze
  • Sassafras variifolium var. albidum (Nutt.) Fernald
  • Tetranthera albida (Nutt.) Spreng.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.