A medium-sized tree, usually 40 feet tall and a trunk to 16" in diameter, occasionally larger, with a narrow crown of horizontal branches with upturned twigs that form an irregular, oblong crown.

Occurs on dry, sandy uplands in East Texas, west to the Brazos River, often sprouting from the roots and forming thickets.

Simple, alternate, 4" to 6" long and 2" to 4" wide, textured on the top surface and glossy green, turning orange, red, and salmon-color in the fall. Leaf shapes are highly variable, even on the same tree: some are oval, but most have one or two palmate lobes shaped like the thumb of a mitten.

Male and female flowers borne on separate trees; the female ones appear with the new leaves in spring as branched clusters of greenish-yellow, 0.25" long flowers.

A lustrous drupe, 0.25" to 0.5" long, round or oblong, dark blue or black, surrounded at the base by a small orange-red cup at the end of the scarlet stalk. Favored by a variety of bird species.

Twigs are green at first, turning scaly and brown on branches; older bark is red­brown, deeply furrowed, with broad, flat ridges that form an interlacing pattern.

Light, soft, weak, brittle, but durable in contact with the soil, it is used for fenceposts and crossties.

Red mulberry (Morus rubra) and white mulberry (M. alba) can sometimes have mitten-shaped leaves, but margin is toothed.

Settlers made "oil of sassafras" by boiling the root bark, claiming it to be a cure-all for a variety of ailments, as well as flavoring for certain beverages ("root beer"). The new spring leaves are collected, dried, and ground into "file" used in cooking, especially to thicken gumbo and soups.