("5) 



medicinal properties are credited to the bark of the root and 

 the pith of the twigs. The wood is used in making pails and 

 buckets, and for fence posts. It is common along the Hud- 

 son but most of the specimens are more shrubby than tree- 

 like. 



Sweet Gum Liquidambar Styraciflua 



Of all the trees included in this list it is doubtful if one 

 of them surpasses in brilliancy of coloring the gorgeous au- 

 tumnal tints of the sweet gum. In the Hudson Valley it be- 

 comes a tree ioo feet high or more. Its branches are as- 

 cending, and when very young covered with dense brown 

 hairs, which subsequently fall away. 



The characteristic star-shaped leaf-blades have a conspicu- 

 ous tuft of hairs at their base on the under side of the blade. 

 The lobes of the leaf are all pointed and the terminal and 

 two upper lobes are conspicuously larger than the lower lobes. 

 Both the fertile and infertile flowers of the sweet gum are 

 arranged in globular little heads. The infertile heads are 

 clustered on slender stalks which are all joined to a main 

 flower-stalk, while the fruit-producing flower-heads are soli- 

 tary on a short stalk arising at the base of the infertile flower- 

 stalks. The fruit matures in the autumn and is about 1^2 

 inches in diameter; its whole surface is crowded with a col- 

 lection of stout recurved prickles. 



The wood of the sweet gum is used for a great variety of 

 purposes, street paving-blocks being one of them. It grows 

 naturally from Connecticut to Florida and westward. It is 

 common in the lower Hudson Valley but rare or perhaps 

 wanting north of the Highlands. (Plate 144.) 



Button Wood Platanus occidentalis 



Peter Kalm, a discriminating historian and traveller, writ- 

 ing in 1749, relates that in the northern part of New York 

 City, large groves of the button wood flourished. To-day 

 it is a common tree throughout the Hudson Valley and is 

 found very generally distributed in the eastern states. 



The peeling of the outer bark and consequent exposure of 



