Safrole

Safrole is a phenylpropene. It is a colorless or slightly yellow oily liquid typically extracted from the root-bark or the fruit of sassafras plants in the form of sassafras oil (although commercially available culinary sassafras oil is usually devoid of safrole due to a rule passed by the FDA in 1960), or is synthesized from catechol or other related methylenedioxy compounds. It is the principal component of brown camphor oil, and is found in small amounts in a wide variety of plants, where it functions as a natural pesticide. Ocotea cymbarum oil made from Ocotea pretiosa, a plant growing in Brazil, and sassafras oil made from Sassafras albidum, a tree growing in eastern North America, are the main natural sources for safrole. It has a characteristic "sweet-shop" aroma.