104 FOREST TREES. 
LIQUIDAMBAR. 
Natural Order, Hamamelacee. 
Male flower, with common, four-leaved calyx, 
without a corolla; female calyx in a globe, four- 
leaved, without acorolla; styles, two; capsules many, 
in a globe, two-valved; seeds many, but only one or 
two perfecting. 
Liquidambar styraciflua—Sweet Gum, Bilsted. 
Leaves, rounded, deeply five to seven-lobed, smooth 
and shining, glandular, serrate, the lobes pointed. 
In the States of the sea board, the Sweet Gum is 
found from Massachusetts to Mexico. West of the 
Alleghanies, it grows along the Ohio river and its 
tributaries, and in Southern Illinois, which appears 
to be its northern limit in the Mississippi valley. I 
have never met with it in the neighborhood of the 
prairies. 
The Sweet Gum is a large and beautiful tree, with 
singular, star-like leaves, which become red in the 
fall, and add to the brilliant coloring of the woods at 
that season. The wood is compact and fine-grained, 
-but not durable. It is applied to various uses where 
the tree is common, gut there are so many other 
trees, of easier cultivation and of greater value, that 
it cannot be recommended for general culture. It is 
a fine ornamental tree, and merits the notice of the 
amateur for his arboretum, and of the planter on an 
extensive scale for the sake of variety. 
The seeds are contained in a globular, woody fruit, 
studded with points. They are small, blackish, and 
