1. Sassafras The tree

2. Uses This plant is used to make things like medicine and even root beer. Before it was banned, many people used it for curing many different sicknesses. You can chew it to refresh your breath.

3. This is what it looks like when it turns into medicine

4. This is Sassafras root beer

5. History Sassafras has been banned from the drug store and the food market because it causes cancer in rats. They banned it because sassafras got into the rats and a lot of rats were in the FDA- Food and Drug Administration.

6. Folklore A long ago people began life as a tree. God separated the trees and he gave them souls, And turned the branches into arms and legs, and made the tops into heads filled with knowledge. Other trees also wanted to become people. They tried, but didn’t make it. But some of their leaves, like sassafras's, are shaped like human hands, showing we were once trees. In Arkansas, superstition shows that people never burned sassafras wood. They thought that someone would die when the wood cracked and broke. Fire inspired many other superstition: in Massachusetts, people believed that the fire would burn and it would look like the shape of the leaves of the tree that was burning.

7. Description It smells like root beer and it’s a medium sized tree with hairy stems and a green color. It grows small ½ inch fruits in the summer. It also grows yellow flowers. It has green, oval shaped leaves.

8. Sassafras in bloom