With their dominance in our Cape Cod forests, it’s hard to miss the oaks unfurling their leaves and sending forth their flowers. Interestingly, what we see are the male flowers, which appear as obvious hanging catkins; the female flowers, on the other hand are much more difficult to observe with the naked eye, particularly from where we stand on the ground. However, it is much easier to overlook the spring emergence of some of our common understory trees, like sassafras (Sassafras albidum). This is especially true for sassafras given their relatively late emergence compared to other trees. 

This native deciduous tree produces flowers in loose, drooping racemes, from terminal buds at the ends of twigs. Everything I’ve read indicates that the flowers appear before the leaves unfold, but based on the sassafras saplings I’ve been observing in my yard over the past week or two, the appearance of both the leaves and flowers seems to have occurred at approximately the same time. In fact, they appear to have emerged from the same large terminal bud. The flowers are yellow to greenish-yellow, with five to six tepals (a term used when the outer part of the flower cannot be easily classified as petals or sepals). Sassafras trees are usually dioecious, with male and female flowers on separate trees. The male flowers have nine stamens, while the female flowers have six staminoids (aborted stamens) and a single style emanating from a prominent raised ovary in the center of the flower.  (The flowers shown in the pictures here are male.)