Sassafras

Sassafras is a genus of three extant and one extinct species of deciduous trees in the family Lauraceae, native to eastern North America and eastern Asia. The genus is distinguished by its aromatic properties, which have made the tree useful to humans.

Sassafras

Randy Everette · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
sassafrasPBDB
Sits inside
LauraceaePBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Angiospermae

Time the record covers

At least 96 million years on record.

The record covers at least 100.5 Mya to 3.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 143.1 Mya to 2.58 Mya.

Late Jurassic — about 0 of 67 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 9 of 67 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 7 of 67 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 26 of 67 occurrencesEocene — about 11 of 67 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 3 of 67 occurrencesMiocene — about 9 of 67 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 1 of 67 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 67 occurrences146–141 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences141–136 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences136–131 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences131–126 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences126–122 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences122–117 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences117–112 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences112–107 Mya — about 2 occurrences107–102 Mya — about 4 occurrences102–97 Mya — about 3 occurrences97–92 Mya — about 2 occurrences92–88 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences88–83 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences83–78 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences78–73 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences73–68 Mya — about 2 occurrences68–63 Mya — about 7 occurrences63–58 Mya — about 11 occurrences58–54 Mya — about 11 occurrences54–49 Mya — about 3 occurrences49–44 Mya — about 2 occurrences44–39 Mya — about 2 occurrences39–34 Mya — about 2 occurrences34–29 Mya — about 2 occurrences29–24 Mya — about 1 occurrence24–19 Mya — about 2 occurrences19–15 Mya — about 4 occurrences15–9.7 Mya — about 2 occurrences9.7–4.9 Mya — about 1 occurrence4.9–0 Mya — about 1 occurrence100.5 Mya3.6 Mya146 Mya0 Mya

67 occurrences of Sassafras on record, most of them in the Paleocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

67 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

29 formations

Fort Union — 44.00°N, 109.00°WFort Union — 41.55°N, 108.70°WFort Union — 43.87°N, 108.17°WFort Union — 43.88°N, 108.52°WFort Union — 44.92°N, 107.17°WFort Union — 44.90°N, 107.03°WFort Union — 48.40°N, 109.27°WFort Union — 44.48°N, 105.48°WFort Union — 43.03°N, 106.98°WFort Union — 40.59°N, 107.69°WFort Union — 45.09°N, 106.09°WFort Union — 44.25°N, 105.07°WFort Union — 43.87°N, 105.17°WKlondike Mountain — 48.65°N, 118.73°WAspen Shale — 42.09°N, 110.51°WAspen Shale — 42.08°N, 110.16°WCheyenne Sandstone — 37.45°N, 99.08°WRenova — 45.50°N, 112.50°WDunvegan — 59.00°N, 118.27°WDunvegan — 55.73°N, 120.12°WChallis Volcanics — 44.37°N, 114.24°WMiddle Park — 40.07°N, 106.10°WLance — 41.57°N, 108.67°WCoalmont — 40.46°N, 106.42°WCoalmont — 40.55°N, 106.32°WWillwood — 44.50°N, 108.33°WChausuyama — 36.58°N, 138.17°EOgawa — 36.42°N, 138.08°ECommotion — 54.42°N, 120.37°WDakota — 39.20°N, 97.45°WCretaceous — 43.43°N, 103.47°WBeaverdam — 42.24°N, 114.08°WSalmon City — 45.18°N, 113.88°WEvanston — 41.27°N, 110.97°WFerris? — 41.94°N, 106.86°WFort Union? — 43.02°N, 106.09°WPatapsco — 37.38°N, 77.28°WD1 — 39.38°N, 104.86°W"Sehuense" — 47.94°S, 66.87°W

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The named rock units Sassafras has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 10 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Sassafras and its relatives

Paleocene

Where Sassafras and its relatives were recorded in the Paleocene.

Found in the same rock

620 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 48 sites for Sassafras, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

33 references

Each of the 67 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 21 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Sassafras

Credit
Randy Everette
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Credit
1-3D.com
Licence
CC Attribution-ShareAlike
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

MorphoSource was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itLauraceae through timeFormations of the PaleoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Nees 1831