The Witch Hazel and the Sweet Gum 



copious flow is from trees in Central America. This gum is 

 known to commerce as "copalm balm," large quantities of which 

 are shipped to Europe from New Orleans and from Mexican ports 

 each year. A Spanish explorer in Mexico described in 1651 

 "large trees that exude a gum like liquid amber." This was the 

 beginning of the trade. Linnaeus later gave the name "liquid- 

 ambar" to the whole genus, which contains four species. Be- 

 sides our American tree there is a species in eastern Asia, not yet 

 well known, and a very important species, L. orienialts, which 

 forms forests in Asia Minor. Long before the Christian era the 

 fragrant gum storax, or styrax, of these trees was used as incense 

 in the temples of various oriental religions. Later it had its 

 place also with frankincense and myrrh in the censers of the 

 Greek and Roman Catholic churches. It was used then, as it is 

 nov/, as a healing balm, as a medicinal drug and as a perfume. 



The American gum is believed to have the same properties 

 as the oriental storax, and it is manufactured into medicines, 

 perfumes, and incense. As a dry gum, it is the standard glove 

 perfume in France. 



First and last, it is not the products of the sweet gum tree 

 that should first commend it to the American people. It is the 

 tree itself, beautifying by its growth the landscape of which it is 

 a part. More and more we are realising the value of native 

 things in landscape gardening. There is a lesson for the American 

 (who would not learn it at home) as he hunts in European gardens 

 and nurseries for trees to plant on his estate. Among the finest 

 and most valued trees abroad is his own native Liquidamhar 

 Siyraciflua, all the more esteemed because there is no European 

 species. 



The name "gum tree" is also applied to our tupelos, and to 

 certain species of Eucalyptus, natives of Australia. 



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