The Sassafras of Thorn Creek Division

This sassafras is only 12.2 metres tall, and its trunk is 3.26 metres round. That makes it the biggest sassafras the Forest Preserves of Cook County have on their land, ranked first in their champion register when it was measured in July 2024. Those two numbers sit oddly together, which is the reason to go. Set it beside another tree on our Chicago page, the county's second-ranked sugar maple at Busse Forest South: the maple is three times as tall, at 36.6 metres, and its trunk is thinner, at 2.47. The sassafras put its growth into girth. The crown follows suit, about 13 metres one way and 9 the other, low and compact over a trunk that would look at home on a tree twice its height. It stands far from the other champions on this page, at Thorn Creek Division in southern Cook County, so it is a trip of its own rather than a stop on a walk. The only other sassafras on our map stands in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, and we hold no measurement for it, so for now this is the one with numbers. The register gives no age, and nobody has dated this tree. If you know how old it is, tell us. Come in October, when sassafras turns orange and red.