Though not typically an imposing forest tree, there are almost 2 billion sassafras trees in the eastern United States. Valued for its use in specialty wood products, teas, and perfumes, and serving as a food source for wildlife and insects, sassafras is an important component of the forest. 
Unfortunately, sassafras is susceptible to laurel wilt disease which quickly kills trees once they are infected. Discovered in the U.S. in 2002, this disease has been spreading slowly through Georgia, Florida, and the Carolinas. 
Researchers first thought the disease would be confined to coastal areas where redbay trees serve as the primary host and where sassafras is less abundant. Recently, however, the disease has made discontinuous jumps into the interior forests of Alabama, Arkansas, and Louisiana suggesting that sassafras may be more threatened than previously believed. This article documents the current distribution of sassafras across forest types and ecological regions in the eastern United States so that future changes due to laurel wilt disease may be anticipated and understood.