WITCH HAZEL FAMILY 



takes on a reptilian form ; indeed, the tree is sometimes 

 called Alligator-wood. 



The autumnal coloring is not simply a flame, it is a confla- 

 gration ; in reds and yellows it equals the maples, and in ad- 

 dition it has the dark purples 

 and smoky browns of the ash. 

 Liquidambar finds its most 

 congenial home east of the 

 Alleghanies and in the basin 

 of the lower Mississippi. It is 

 one of three who are the sur- 

 vivors of an ancient and wide- 

 ly distributed family. Its im- 

 mediate ancestor inhabited in 

 tertiary times Alaska, Green- 

 land and the mid-continental 

 plateau of North America, a 

 similar form is also found in 

 the miocene of Europe. The 

 other living representatives of 

 the genus are Z. orienialis, 

 found in Asia Minor, and L. 

 Formosana, found in China and 

 the Island of Formosa. The 

 storax of commerce is a gum 

 obtained from the inner bark of the two eastern species ; 

 our northern tree produces very little, and that only in its 

 most southern habitat. 



Fruit of Sweet Gum. 



164 



