NATURE NOTES

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23191, 30 November 1940, Page 4

NATURE NOTES

LIQUIDAMBAR OR SWEET GUiM

One or our rtiost gorgeous trees in the autumn is Liquidambar styraciflua. This extraordinary name merely means that it is the tree which exudes a gum known as styrax.

Many people plant a sweet gum in their gardens because they have heard

that it has gorgeous scarlet, orange, and yellow lints as well as purple, lilac, and brown tones. Some people are disappointed—the tree does not do at all well, and frequently becomes

(By L. W. McCaskill)

stunted. After seeing it grow in its natural haunts in America I would not advocate the planting of sweet gum in dry or light soils. It prefers stream banks and rich moist soil. Along the flood-plain of the lower Mississippi Valley it may grow to a height of 150 ft, with a diameter of sft. The glossy, aromatic, star-shaped, five to seven pointed leaves- give rise to one common name, the star-leafed gum. I have not yet seen the tree flower in New Zealand, and I was too late for the flowering season in America. But I saw the brown seed balls which consist of a number of closely connected woody horn-tipped pods in which the seeds are enclosed. The slender first year twigs are light orange to reddish brown, with prominent breathing holes or lenticels. After the second year corky wings or ridges develop. Larger branches have a broken warty bark which gives the tree the name, “alligator wood.” Sweet gum provides one-eighth of the hardwood timber of the United States, Furniture. railway sleepers. cigar boxes, boxes and crates. flooring. veneers, and barrels are among its many uses there. This concludes the scries on American trees. We v/ill shortly commence a series dealing with trees which have come to us from the Old World.