432 BALSAMIFLUiE. (SWEET-GUM FAMILY.) 
sembles; but the leaves are larger and much broader, with a distinct 
sinus at the base. It is found wild only in the North, but is very 
common in cultivation. 
P. nIgra, L., was admitted by the elder Michaux into his Flora, 
without any mention of its locality. It was afterwards published by 
his son, under the name of F. Hudsdnica : he, however, found it “only 
on the banks of the Hudson river, above Albany.” Lastly, it was de¬ 
scribed as P. betulifdlia by Pursh, who further added as its station, 
“about Lake Ontario.” The tree was probably an introduced form 
of the European P. nigra, and was latterly so considered by the young¬ 
er Michaux himself. A few of these trees are still found in the neigh¬ 
bourhood of Hoboken, New Jersey. 
P. dilatIta, Ait., the well-known pyramidal Lombardy Poplar, 
has been extensively introduced as an ornamental tree, and is found 
in the vicinity of all old settlements. 
Order 105. BA!LSAMIFLUiE. (Sweet-Gum Fam.) 
Trees, with a balsamic colorless juice , alternate ‘palmate - 
ly lobed leaves , deciduous stipules , and monoecious flowers 
in separate roundish catkins , destitute of calyx or corolla , 
the fruit of 2-beaked and 2- celled several-seeded woody 
pods: — consists only of the genus 
1. LiqriDAMBAB, L. Sweet-Gum Tree. 
Sterile flowers in several globular heads arranged in a conical 
cluster, naked : stamens numerous, intermixed with minute scales: 
filaments short. Fertile catkins consisting of 2-celled ovaries, sub¬ 
tended by minute scales, all more or less cohering and hardening 
in fruit, forming a spherical catkin or head; the pods opening be¬ 
tween the 2 awl-shaped or prickly diverging styles. Seeds small, 
amphitropous, with sparing albumen and a straight embryo : coty¬ 
ledons foliaceous. — Catkins racemed, nodding, inclosed in the 
bud by a 4-leaved deciduous involucre. (A mongTel name, from 
liquidus , fluid, and the Arabic ambar , amber, in allusion to the ter- 
ebinthine juice or storax which exudes from the tree.) 
1. Iu. styraciflua, L. (Sweet Gum. Bilsted.) Leaves 
rounded, deeply 5-7-lobed, smooth and shining, finely glandular-ser¬ 
rate, the lobes pointed.— Moist woods, from Connecticut and New 
Jersey southward. April. — A large and beautiful tree, with fine¬ 
grained wood and gray bark, with corky ridges on the branchlets. 
Leaves fragrant when bruised, turning deep red or crimson in autumn. 
