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 
fi 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 LZ. ordentalis, 
found in Asia Minor, and Z. 
formosana, found in China and 
HalitvoR Swiss: Gane 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. 
164 
