Plant · P-1012

Sweetgum

Liquidambar styraciflua

Sweetgum is a tall, fast-growing bottomland tree with star-shaped leaves and fine, durable wood ranked among the more important eastern hardwoods after the oaks. Its trunk yields storax, an aromatic resin chewed as gum and used medicinally for coughs and sore throats for centuries. The one thing anyone planting it needs to know: the woody, spiny seed balls that hang on all winter are murder on bare feet and lawn mowers alike, so it belongs over ground that never gets walked or mowed rather than next to a path or driveway. It needs full sun and acidic soil - alkaline or lime-heavy ground turns its leaves yellow with chlorosis - and once cut or burned back, it resprouts readily from the stump for decades.