178 FAMILIAR TREES AND THEIR LEAVES. 



The bark is brown-gray, and is seamed vertically ; 

 the branches push out at almost right angles below 

 (not so very far from the ground), and if these are 

 examined it will be found that they are covered with 

 strange, corky-looking ridges, reminding one of a fun- 

 gous growth. In a warm climate the sweet-smelling 

 gum is frequently noticeable on the bark, 

 and by bruising the leaf the same spicy 

 odor may be obtained. One is enabled 

 to recognize the tree without difficul- 

 ty by means of the leaf and the aro- 

 matic sap. But this is not enough; 

 the liquidambar is deserving of our 

 closest attention. From the con- 

 ventional and decorative seed- 

 ball, filled with a lot of abortive seed 

 (there are few good ones) fine as sawdust, to the wide 

 expanse of the charmingly proportioned tree itself, it 

 is beautiful in every way; as a shade tree it has 

 few rivals, and as an ornament for a park or private 

 grounds it has no equal, unless it be the sugar maple. 

 Both trees frequently assume a perfect egg-shaped 

 outline, but in its leafy details I consider the liquid- 

 ambar decoratively superior to the maple. The tree 

 reaches its finest growth in the Mississippi Valley; 

 it can rarely be found north of Connecticut, and it is 

 commonest south of Baltimore and St. Louis. Curi- 



