188 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



THE SWEET GUM TREE. Liquidambar. 



Nat. Ord. Platanaceae. Lin. Syst. MoncEcia, Polyandria. 



According to Michaux,* the Sweet gum is one of our 

 most extensively diffused trees. On the seashore it is seen 

 as far north as Portsmouth ; and it extends as far south as 

 the Gulf of Mexico and the Isthmus of Darien. In many 

 of the southern states it is one of the commonest trees of the 

 forest ; it is rarely seen, however, along the banks of the 

 Hudson (except in New Jersey), or other large streams of 

 New York. It is not unlike the maple in general appear- 

 ance, and its palmate, five-lobed leaves are in outline much 

 like the Sugar maple, though darker in color and firmer in 

 texture. It may also be easily distinguished from that tree, 

 by the curious appearance of its secondary branches, which 

 have a peculiar roughness, owing to the bark attaching 

 itself in plates edgewise to the trunk, instead of laterally, as 

 in the usual manner. The fruit is globular, somewhat 

 resembling that of the buttonwood, but much rougher, and 

 bristling with points. The male and female catkins appear 

 on different branches of the same tree early in spring. 



This tree grows in great perfection in the forests of New 

 Spain. It was first described by a Spanish naturalist, Dr. 

 Hernandez, who observed that a fragrant and transparent 

 gum issued from its trunk in that country, to which, from 

 its appearance, he gave the name of liquid amber. This is 

 now the common name of the tree in Europe ; and the gum 

 is at present an article of export from Mexico, being chiefly 

 valued in medicine as a styptic, and for its healing and 

 balsamic properties. " This substance, which in the shops 



N. A. Sylva, i. 315. 



