American Sweet Gum Tree Bark
This resin is sometimes called liquid amber because of its golden color and sweet odor.
American sweet gum tree bark. Bark is brown to gray very rough with deep grooves and narrow slightly scaly ridges. American sweetgum liquidambar styraciflua also known as american storax hazel pine bilsted redgum satin walnut star leaved gum alligatorwood or simply sweetgum is a deciduous tree in the genus liquidambar native to warm temperate areas of eastern north america and tropical montane regions of mexico and central america sweet gum is one of the main valuable forest trees in the. The american sweetgum is often planted as a street tree in surburban areas but it also can tend to form. Sweet gum is a large tree with a long cylindrical trunk pyramidal crown and corky wings on branches and twigs.
Gum trees can grow in moderately moist soil conditions but they prefer wet bottomland. Leaves are alternate simple star shaped with 5 sometimes 7 lobes 3 6 inches wide deeply lobed. Matthew barlow nursery manager at earthworksjax shares the history and continuing legacy through suckering of a sweet gum tree at the nursery. Margin toothed tips long pointed.
Leaves slightly aromatic when bruised. Trees vary in height the shape of their canopies type of foliage fall color flowers or fruit as well as other. The trunk of a mature gum tree may be five feet in diameter. The bark on the trunk is light gray in color with deep rounded ridges.
The range of. Twigs are reddish. The reason for the sweetgum s name is that early american pioneers used to peel the bark off of the tree and scrape the gum off of the bark which was used as chewing gum and also another resin derivative from the tree is used in fragrances pharmeceuticals soaps and natural medicines. The american sweetgum gets its scientific and common name from the gummy sap that is found directly under that bark and seeps out when the tree is wounded.
The american sweet gum tree liquidambar styraciflua grows in eastern woodlands from southern connecticut to northern illinois to texas to central florida. Sweet gum trees may reach heights from 80 to 150 feet and they may spread to 45 feet wide.