What type of leaf is a sweet gum?
Sweetgum is a deciduous tree that may grow 80 to 120 feet tall with a diameter of 4 feet or more. On most sites, the tree averages 60 to 80 feet high and 2 to 3 feet in diameter. The tree has alternate, palmately lobed leaves with toothed margins that mature into a star shape.
What type of tree is sweet gum?
American sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua), also known as American storax, hazel pine, bilsted, redgum, satin-walnut, star-leaved gum, alligatorwood, or simply sweetgum, is a deciduous tree in the genus Liquidambar native to warm temperate areas of eastern North America and tropical montane regions of Mexico and …
What is the leaf arrangement of a sweetgum tree?
The leaves of the Sweetgum is hand shaped, lobed with typically five leaf tips. The leaf margin is serrated. blossom description: The greenish flowers are inconspicuous, because they are of the same color as the leaves and sprout together.
How do you identify a sweet gum tree?
Sweetgum Tree Identification To identify sweet gum trees, look for large star-shaped lobed green leaves that turn spectacular autumn red, yellow, and orange colors. Sweetgum tree bark looks light gray with vertical fissured ridges. Spiky gumballs are another identifying feature of sweetgum trees.
Is a sweetgum tree a maple?
Sweet gum tree has maple-like leaves that turn yellow to red in the fall. See more pictures of trees. Sweet gum tree is a tall, majestic tree that’s difficult to beat for symmetrical beauty in a landscape setting. Although native to eastern North America, it is widely planted throughout the continent in its range.
How do you plant a sweet gum tree?
Sweetgums need a location in full sun or partial shade. They grow in almost any soil, from sandy to clay and from acid to slightly alkaline. They have a lot of shallow roots, but they also have some deep roots that prefer moist, deep soil. They tolerate winters in USDA plant hardiness zones 5 through 9.
Is sweet gum opposite leaves?
Sweet gum is a large tree with a long, cylindrical trunk, pyramidal crown, and corky wings on branches and twigs. Leaves are alternate, simple, star-shaped, with 5 (sometimes 7) lobes, 3–6 inches wide, deeply lobed; margin toothed, tips long-pointed; leaves slightly aromatic when bruised.
What does the leaf of a sweetgum tree look like?
The new twigs every year are reddish brown in color and sometimes covered in corky “wings.” The leaves of the American sweetgum look like glossy five-pointed stars (though some leaves can have up to seven points). In autumn, the green leaves turn yellow, red, orange or purple depending on the cultivar.
What type of fruit is a sweet gum?
Sweet Gum, Cape Chestnut, & Nigella The capsule is a dehiscent dry fruit that splits open is various ways and usually along several definite seams. Capsules typically split open into well-defined sections or carpels which represent modified leaves. This is a very common dry fruit found in many different plant families.
What is the difference between sweet gum and maple tree?
The leaf margin of red maples are coarsely toothed to entire (smooth) while the margins of sweetgum are finely toothed. You can also note that the underside of red maple leaves are much lighter in color, almost white, compared to the underside of sweetgum leaves.
Is a red maple leaf simple or compound?
Like most deciduous trees, the red maple is a broadleaf that is flat and thin. It is a simple leaf, meaning it develops only one leaf blade as opposed to the multiple blades seen on compound leaves.
What are the uses of a sweet gum tree?
Sweet gum trees have various medicinal uses. Their fruit is effective against rheumatic pain. The bark has astringent properties and addresses dysentery and diarrhea. Gum resin from the trees has anti-inflammatory and expectorant properties and has been used to treat bedsores, topical herpes and angina.
What are sweet gum trees good for?
Very often sweet gum trees are used in reforestation and land reclamation projects. Its ability to grow quickly and resilience against insects and diseases makes it a good choice for such projects. The sweet gum can also provide large areas of shade in places they are planted.
Is a sweet gum tree deciduous or evergreen?
Sweet Gum Description. A sweet gum is a deciduous tree in the witch hazel family that ranges in height from 60 to 100 feet and has a narrow oval canopy. It has a moderate to rapid growth rate, putting on height at a rate of 1 to 4 feet a year for the first five to 10 years and 12 to 15 inches per year thereafter.
What are facts about the sweet gum tree?
Gum. The American sweet gum tree was so named because of the amber-colored,resinous sweet sap that was scraped from the inside of the bark to produce a chewing gum-like