10 
SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 
HAMAMELIDEZ., 
LIQUIDAMBAR STYRACIFLUA. 
Sweet Gum.  Bilsted. 
LEAVES deeply 5 to 7-lobed, lustrous. 
Liquidambar Styraciflua, Linnezus, Spec. 999 (1753). — 
Miller, Dict. ed. 8, No. 1. — Kalm, Travels, English 
ed. ii. 21.— Moench, Béiume Weiss. 56; Meth. 340. — 
Marshall, Arbust. Am.77. —Castiglioni, Viag. negli Stati 
Uniti, ii. 279.— Wangenheim, Nordam. Holz. 49, t. 16, 
f. 40. — Walter, #7. Car. 237. — Lamarck, Dict. iii. 
533. — Gertner, Fruct. ii. 57, t. 90. — Willdenow, Berl. 
Baumz. 172; Spec. iv. 475; Enum. 985. — Borkhausen, 
Handb. Forstbot. i. 633. — Abbot, Insects of Georgia, i. 
t. 48. — Michaux, 7. Bor.-Am. ii. 202. — Persoon, Syn. ii. 
573. — Desfontaines, Hist. Arb. ii. 541. — Titford, Hort. 
Bot. Am. 97. —Schkuhr, Handb. iii. 275, t. 307. — Nou- 
veau Duhamel, ii. 42, t. 10. — Michaux f. Hist. Arb. Am. 
iii. 194, t.4. — Pursh, FU. Am. Sept. ii. 635. — Rafinesque, 
Fl. Ludovic. 116. — Nuttall, Gen. ii. 219. — Elliott, Sk. 
ii. 621.— Poiret, Lam. Dict. il. iii. 367, t. 783.— Sprengel, 
Syst. iii. 864.— Audubon, Birds, t. 45.— Torrey, £1. 
N. Y. ii. 217. — Spach, Hist. Vég. xi. 84. — Broomfield, 
Lond. Jour. Bot. vii. 144. — Schnizlein, Jcon. t. 98, £. 
5-21. — Chapman, Fl. 157. — Curtis, Rep. Geolog. Surv. 
N. Car. 1860, iii. 77. — De Candolle, Prodr. xvi. pt. i. 
157. — Hooker, Icon. xi. 13.— Koch, Dendr. ii. 464. — 
Baillon, Hist. Pl. iii. 397; Dict. Bot. iii. 262. — Le 
Maout & Decaisne, Traité Gén. Bot. 533, figs. — Ridg- 
way, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. 1882, 67. — Lauche, Deutsche 
Dendr. ed. 2, 337, £. 129. — Sargent, Forest Trees N. 
Am. 10th Census U. S. ix. 86.— Watson & Coulter, 
Gray’s Man. ed. 6, 180. 
Liquidambar Styraciflua, var. Mexicana, Orsted, Am. 
Cent. xvi. t. 11 (1863). 
Liquidambar macrophylla, Orsted, Am. Cent. xvi. t. 
10 (1863). — Hemsley, Bot. Biol. Am. Cent. i. 400. 
A tree, eighty to one hundred and forty feet in height, with a straight trunk four or five feet in 
diameter, and slender branches which, while the tree is young, form a symmetrical pyramidal head, and 
when it reaches old age a comparatively small oblong crown. The bark of the trunk on fully grown 
individuals varies from an inch to an inch and a half in thickness; it is dark brown tinged with red, 
and broken by deep fissures into broad ridges covered by short thick scales. The branchlets, which 
contain a large pith, are slightly many-angled, and covered, when they appear, with caducous rufous 
hairs; in their first winter they are light orange-color to reddish brown, with occasional minute dark 
lenticels, and large arcuate leaf-scars marked by the ends of three conspicuous clusters of fibro-vascular 
bundles; in their first season they develop corky wings, which on lateral branches appear on the upper 
side in three or four parallel ranks, and irregularly on all sides of vertical branches, increasing in width 
and thickness for many years, until they are sometimes two or three inches broad and an inch thick.’ 
In their second year the branchlets become red-brown, gray, or dark brown. The winter-buds are acute, 
a quarter of an inch long, and covered with ovate acute minutely apiculate orange-brown scales rounded 
on the back, those of the inner rows being accrescent, slightly ciliate on the margins, tipped with red, 
and at maturity half an inch in length. The leaves are generally round in outline, truncate or slightly 
heart-shaped at the base, deeply five to seven-lobed, with acutely pointed divisions, and finely glandular- 
serrate with rounded appressed teeth; they are six to seven inches across, and are borne on slender 
petioles at first clothed near the base with rufous caducous hairs and five to seven inches in length ; 
when they unfold they are pilose on the lower surface, but usually soon become glabrous, with the 
exception of large tufts of pale or rufous hairs which remain in the axils of the principal veins during 
the season; at maturity they are thin and rather membranaceous, bright green, smooth, and lustrous, 
with broad primary veins and finely reticulated veinlets ; when bruised they exhale a pleasant resinous 
fragrance; and in the autumn they turn a deep crimson. The stipules are lanceolate, acute, entire, 
1 Emily L. Gregory, Bot. Gazette, xiii. 282. 
