I am commenting to counter the first comment.
What that Dave's Garden member fails to understand is the severe pressure many Chin...Read Moreese plants (& animals) are under.
If this were the profile page for Morus Alba, the Chinese Mulberry, then yes, there is a problem with it being invasive in the USA. Morus Alba's pollen is aggressive & easily pollutes our native Morus Rubra, creating hybrid offspring & diluting the gene pool of pure Morus Rubra. -According to a study I read of the 6 wild populations of Morus Rubra in Ontario.
But we are talking about Sassafras, & the two Chinese species: S. Tzumu & S. Randaiense are threatened & for the latter: critically Endangered. They are extremely rare in cultivation in the USA. American Sassafras is robust & so common throughout most of its range that it would take a long time to change that. So actually, readers would be doing a very good & wonderful thing by being so lucky as to find a source for the two Chinese Sassafras & planting them......before they reach extinction in the land of a billion people. I have searched for a long time to find a source to buy either Chinese species & no luck yet.
No reason to plant non-natives - sure they grow fast. They have nothing to keep them in check and then our ecology is choked and can no l...Read Moreonger provide food for our pollinators and animals.
Plant Sassafras albidum. The leaves are velvety and new leaves are reddish. This tree provides food for many of our native birds and small animals who in turn eat insects to keep the ecology humming.
Spectacular fast growing ornamental tree. A small 1 foot tall specimen planted in a private San Francisco Bay Area garden in May of 2006...Read More is now (August 2008) over 12 feet tall! Much more upright and treelike and (in my humble opinion) much more desirable than its suckering American cousin. Large dark green leaves measuring up to 10 inches long turn a superb soft rosy apricot color in the Fall before dropping
There's a mature specimen in the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden. It's approximately 40 feet tall as of this writing.
I am commenting to counter the first comment.
What that Dave's Garden member fails to understand is the severe pressure many Chin...Read More
No reason to plant non-natives - sure they grow fast. They have nothing to keep them in check and then our ecology is choked and can no l...Read More
Spectacular fast growing ornamental tree. A small 1 foot tall specimen planted in a private San Francisco Bay Area garden in May of 2006...Read More