Liquidambar styraciflua Sweetgum, Alligator wood
This trees is native to warm temperate areas of eastern North America and tropical montane regions of Mexico and Central America. Despite the similarity of its leaves to maple or oak it is in a completely different family. It always seems like this would have been a better common name for maple. The distinctive spiny fruit are shared across the genus, and Asian species in the same genus are used medicinally. The wood has been put to various uses, including imitation mahogany. It is a common ornamental, probably because of its fall colors. Those colors are much more vibrant the farther north you go.
In Florida sweetgum is found from Tampa northward and occurs in both lowland and upland woods.
Form: A large tree up to 40 m in height. Leaves: Alternate, simple 10-18 cm (sometimes more than 20 cm), star shaped with long petioles, serrated margins. The alternate leaves makes it easy to distinguish from maples. Flowers: March-May,when leaves are half grown greenish. Male and female flowers are born on the same tree. Male flowers are in terminal racemes two to three inches long, covered with rusty hairs; the female flowers are born on a slender peduncle borne in the axil some leaves. Fruit:Hard spiny balls 2.5-4cm in diameter hanging on long stalks are made up of fused ovaries, making it a compound fruit with 40-60 seed capsules. These fruit are persistent and quite distinctive for the species. Bark: Grayish, fissured and interlacing. The plated bark on small twigs gives it another common name: Alligator wood.
Sweetgum Map Florida State University Campus see in separate window
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