Root beer 🍺 and fall foliage 🍂 Sassafras is an amazing native tree. All parts of the plant are interesting: - Roots: one of the original ingredients in root beer - Leaves: multiple shapes on the same tree - Stems: can grow as a tree or a thicket - Host plant to the spicebush swallowtail butterfly Root beer is now artificially flavored after one of the compounds in Sassafras roots, safrole, was banned by the FDA in the 1960s. Sassafras root is also responsible for root beer’s characteristic foa