Should I remove or save my sassafras?
Sassafras isn't a habitual problem species, so a sound one is usually worth an opinion before it comes out. Nobody plants sassafras in central Indiana — it arrives on its own along the back fence, the treeline and the old pasture edge, then ends up on a quote once it has grown tall and skinny over a shed, a fence or the neighbor's drive. It is a brittle pioneer species that gets tall faster than it gets strong.
How to tell which one you've got
Watch for flagging: one limb or one leader wilting, browning and holding its dead leaves while the rest of the crown stays green. That pattern is a vascular problem and worth investigating, whereas general midsummer leaf scorch on an exposed edge tree is routine stress; note that laurel wilt, the disease killing sassafras through the Southeast and into Kentucky, was still not detected in Indiana as of the 2025 surveys, and Purdue has been looking at a separate sassafras wilt involving other pathogens.
The structural question
The wood is soft and brittle and it rates intermediate for ice susceptibility — it rarely uproots, but it snaps. The Indiana pattern is a tall, thin-stemmed sassafras that grew up crowded in a fencerow and then got exposed when the neighboring trees came down: under glaze or straight-line wind it loses its leader or drops a limb off the newly sunlit side.
Related
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