on the deeply furrowed

on the deeply furrowed

bark of a sassafras tree

a face stares back at me

          The day after Labor Day, we're making our annual pilgrimage to the Missouri Ozarks, a pilgrimage that sends me back in time as well as placing me intensely in the present. 
          Crossing the footbridge to our campsite at Pulltite Campgrounds, I find the fallen leaves of sassafras scattered on the bare ground. If you didn't know, you might think these leaves came from different trees. Some are pointed ovals, others have three "fingers" or lobes, and some look like mittens, both right- and left-handed, with one lobe for the thumb. Why they grow this way on one tree is one of the marvelous mysteries of nature.
          In their autumn raiment each leaf is an abstract painting in splashes of green, gold, red and brown, interspersed with dark gray concentric circles like the growth rings of trees. I look around for the source of all these cast offs and find a tall tree, still bearing some green leaves, growing along the little creek that runs under the bridge and into the Current River.
          Picking up a red mitten, I press it to my nose. Ah, that sweet scent takes me back to my childhood. My grandmother used sassafras oil as a fragrance for homemade soap. And every year my grandfather dug up roots from trees on their Southern Illinois farm to make sassafras tea. He said the reddish-brown concoction was good for anything that ails you. Even after I went off to college, he would send me a package of the curled bark of the dried roots so I could steep my own tea. And of course, real root beer was always flavored with safrole, the essential oil from steam distilled sassafras roots. (Yes, I know, safrole oil is no longer legal in the US.)
          My older sister, when she lived in Louisiana, introduced us to gumbo filé, gumbo made with a powder of dried sassafras leaves, a spicy herb that made its way into Creole cuisine from Native American tribes. In addition to the culinary use of sassafras, Native Americans also used sassafras medicinally, as the oil in all parts of the tree has antiseptic and analgesic properties. 
          The oil also makes a good insect repellent, and since we're besieged by mosquitoes this close to the river I rub some of the redolent leaves on my bare skin. Then I gather a handful of the leaves, which will make excellent fire starters.

a water-loving

a water-loving

willow spreads branches and roots

toward the river

One of my favorite childhood memories is of a weeping willow that grew on the bank beside an Ozark creek where our family often vacationed in a log cabin that belonged to some friends. The wife was an artist and she painted a watercolor of my older sister and me under the willow. I am sitting cross-legged, reading a book, and my sister is standing, fishing with a bamboo pole. This early memory comes sweeping back whenever I see a willow. So when we arrive at Hruska's Canoe Livery, I am pleased to discover that the campground on the bank of the Oneota River is shaded by many willow trees. However, these are not weeping willows and they don't look like the wild willows with contorted trunks and low, widespread branches that grow along the river. Our shuttle driver tells us it's an Austree, an import from Australia. He calls it a "dirty" tree because it litters the ground with lots of little branches. I find out later that the Austree was widely planted in Australia to control erosion along waterways because they grow quickly with wide-spreading roots. However, it is now considered an invasive weed and is being removed and replaced with native trees. Many homeowners can attest to the problem of aggressive, moisture-seeking willow roots that clog drains and septic systems. Still, they are beautiful trees and they have a very important medicinal use. The leaves and bark of the willow tree have been used for thousands of years for aches and fevers. The active ingredient, salicin, turns into salicylic acid, the precursor of aspirin, in the human body. This brings back another childhood memory. My father always kept a huge bottle of aspirin in the medicine cabinet. He considered it a cure for everything from tummy ache to tantrums.