200 SYLVA AMERICANA. 



and Lower Louisiana. In the United States this tree is 

 universally called Sweet Gum, and by the French of Louisiana, 

 Cojjalm. In the Middle, Southern and Western States, the 

 sweet gum is sufficiently multiplied to be numbered among the 

 most common trees : it is met with wherever the soil is fertile, 

 cool and exposed to temporary inundations. In the south, it 

 grows also in the great swamps, which border the rivers, and 

 here, owing doubtless to the mildness of the winter and to the 

 intense heat of the summer, it displays its amplest dimensions. 



In favorable situations the sweet gum grows to the height of 

 60 feet with a circumference of 15 feet, at five feet from the 

 ground. It ramifies at the height of 15 or 18 feet, and its summit 

 is spacious in proportion to the thickness of the trunk ; but it 

 does not generally branch at so small an elevation. When 

 confined amidst other trees, its trunk, like those of the oak and 

 elm, is perfectly straight and of an uniform size to the height of 

 30 or 40 feet,. at which it begins to divide itself into branches : 

 in these situations it is from one to two feet in diameter. On 

 dry and gravelly land its height does not exceed 15, 20 or 30 

 feet, and its secondary branches are covered with a dry, flaky 

 bark, of which the plates are attached by the edge, instead of 

 the face as on other trees. This tree is garnished with fine 

 foliage, which changes to a dull red with the first autumnal frosts, 

 and falls soon after. The shoots upon which the young leaves 

 appear in the spring are smooth and of a yellowish-green color. 

 The leaves vary in size from three to six inches, according to 

 the vigor of the tree and to the situation of the leaf, being larger 

 and less deeply palmated on the lower branches : they are 

 alternate, petiolated, and divided into five principal lobes : in 

 this last particular they bear some resemblance to the leaves of 

 the sugar maple, from which they differ in having the lobes 

 deeper and more regularly shaped, and being finely denticulated 

 at the edge. It should be remarked also that, at the birth of the 

 leaves, the back part of the principal rib is surmounted by a 

 small tuft of red down. In warm weather a viscous substance 

 exudes from the leaves of such of those trees as grow upon dry 

 grounds ; when bruised, they exhale a sensible, aromatic odor. 



