Gardening and Such
Social Media
  • Home
  • About Me
    • My Experience Gardening
    • Lessons from Nanny
    • Education
    • Jungle Taming
    • Nanny's Garden Slideshow
  • What We Do
    • Ongoing Care
    • Design
    • Flyer
    • Charges/Costs
    • Scenes from Work
  • Going Green
    • Native Plants
    • Keeping it Clean
  • Contact
    • Contact Form
  • Writings
    • Spring Springing, Pruning, Shearing
    • It's about the People
    • An Autumn Masterpiece
    • The Life Is in the Sap
    • Ten Ways to Die Gardening
    • Fall Gardening I: the Geek Version
    • Confessions of a Certified (and Certifiable) Tree Hugger ​
    • A Day In The Life
    • What's Killing Your Lawn
    • The Sand Hills
    • Sweet Bay
    • Fringe Tree
    • Sweet Gum
    • Sassafras
    • It Will Stop You in Your Tracks
    • A Baker's Dozen Favorite Gardening Books
    • He Planted a Garden
    • Ode to the Humble Cherry Laurel
    • How to Find a Gardener

Sweetgum 

9/19/2014

14 Comments

 
When I was a kid, maybe 10 or 11 years old, a friend of mine from school lived in a house with a huge backyard including a great field for playing baseball. He also had some of the best climbing trees anywhere. My favorite, due to the ease of getting very very high, was a tree with these pointy little balls all over the ground and hanging from the ends of the limbs. I really didn’t know what the tree was called. But we could climb so high – this tree was higher than the surrounding old loblolly pines. Of course, being kids, we’d go to the very top and sway back and forth. It was such a great way to feel alive! I am talking about the venerable old sweetgum tree, Liquidambar styraciflua, a tree which people love to hate these days.

No matter the season, it’s easy to know when you’re standing underneath a sweetgum. Scattered on the ground are those round prickly balls, about an inch and half in diameter, with little holes between the prickly parts. These pointy balls house the seeds of the sweet gum tree, and are commonly referred to as “gum balls.” If it’s winter and you find yourself stepping on gum balls in a parking lot or in someone’s yard, look up, and you’ll usually see many more gum balls still hanging onto the tree by their three inch long stems.

Picture
The gum balls can be messy in a yard, and they hurt to step upon barefooted. I advise folks to rake up the gum balls and toss them into the back of a flower bed or into a compost bin – they decompose and crumble eventually, and provide organic matter for our sandy soils. For what it’s worth, some animals don’t like walking on sweetgum balls either, nor do slugs like crawling on them. Sweet gum balls make nice Christmas tree ornaments when painted, and they are a pretty decent golf ball substitute for practicing a golf swing.

These fruit balls provide food to many species of bird and mammal. One day I sat in my car and watched a gray squirrel sitting on a fence in front of me systematically nibble off all the spines of a sweet gum ball to get at the enclosed seeds. So the next time you feel like griping or cursing over all those prickly gum balls, remember, to a lot of animals they are food for the winter. You can learn to love them, you can! Well, maybe not...But tolerate them, yes!

Notice the tree trunk, fairly dark, mildly furrowed, and heavy looking, with somewhat of an “alligator” skin appearance. The limbs tend to come somewhat horizontally off the trunk and somewhat evenly spaced in altitude, to make sweet gums, even very large ones, some of the best trees for climbing, as many brave children will attest.
Picture
Sweetgums grow up to 80 to 120 feet, and even taller ones can be found deep in southern bottom land forests. There is a huge sweetgum in the front yard of one of my clients. It is only about three feet in diameter but is very very tall. It grows amongst some of the tallest loblolly pine trees in Richland County and is as tall as they are, so I guess its height at 120 feet. The tallest sweetgum of all is in Congaree Swamp measuring 160 feet high!

The leaves of the sweetgum are very distinctive, usually five pointed, six or so inches across, with a star or perhaps starfish shape and appearance. The top of the leaf is glossy or shiny, which, given its star like shape, adds to its beauty. In the fall the sweetgum leaves tend to turn a deep crimson red, adding splash to the yellow dominated palate of the Midlands autumn. Below is a photo of a thick glossy new leaf in spring, and below that two dry leaves in the fall.

Picture
Picture
If crushed in the hand the leaf has a particular odor called “resinous” by the tree books. That may be the best way to describe the sappy, tart odor. Often the small branches and twigs of the sweetgum have little ridges growing out on each side. These corky ridges called “wings” also show up on “winged” elm trees.

Walk through any recently abandoned field and you will probably find many young sweetgums mixed with the usual opportunistic pine trees. Though slower growing than the pines which are usually first to take over a field, and thus left in their shade for a time, the sweetgum is one of the first hardwoods to rise above the pines and begin the transition from pine to mixed hardwood forest.

So, why is this tree called a “gum” tree anyway. The sweet gum tree produces a sap or resin (that flows more freely the farther south you go, giving it the name liquidambar) that when hardened can be chewed as a gum. This resin of the sweetgum tree was long reputed to have medicinal qualities, used for the treatment of skin sores. It was widely used for treatment of dysentery during the Civil War.

The sweetgum tree provides one of our most important furniture woods, used mainly for veneers, but also for cabinets and boxes and toys, and even as pulpwood.

I have loved sweetgums my whole life. I took the photo below, or sweetgum leaves on water, in about 1977, from the top of the dam of a small pond near my house in the Forest Lake area.


Picture
14 Comments
William Kerrigan link
9/6/2015 08:15:13 am

So happy to learn there is at least one other Sweet Gum lover in this world! Nice article, and beautiful pictures!

Reply
Tina marie
8/25/2016 09:29:37 pm

Wonderful writings ,. Thank you for sharing your love of this wonderful gift. You have sparked a new found love in this tree I never knew what those spikey balls where from as my drive way is a Forrest and the source of these was hidden from view. Now I will have a need and want to go and find this majestic beauty and thank her for the gifta she brings.

Reply
Ismael cabrera
8/10/2024 02:51:02 pm

Every tree is a gift 🎁

Reply
Lilly Landis
10/28/2016 01:05:48 pm

I found myself picking up a box of these newfound "thorns" as I called them, but I really didn't know what to call them. I'm glad I found your blog because I'm using them as a "symbol" or Icon to begin a divorce ministry entitled "His Grace Ministries" the thorn being the picture of a "thorn" in the flesh of Paul, and his obedience to carry on his mission in spite of his life's "thorn in the flesh". My thought is to spray the thorn a fun color and make it into a womans necklace for a woman or a key ring (maybe) for a man...to remind them that God is still in control in spite of the thorns of divorce. 2 Corinthians 12:7-10. Thanks for letting me share my thoughts, and thank you for clarifying these interesting fruits from the Sweet Gum Tree. Can I use your definition concerning the healing balm of this fruit? That would be a great way to explain this kind of fruit for healing a broken heart.

Reply
Fazeel Chauhan link
4/30/2018 02:15:35 pm

What is the most common and most accepted form of child abuse today?
Divorce.
The Sterling Institute offers trainings for men and women, which helps us have better relationships and marriages.
A book for women:
"What Really Works With Men"
by A. Justin Sterling
A book for men:
"Iron John"
by Robert Bly
and see the PBS video on youtube: "A Gathering of Men"

Reply
Bonsai Tree Gardener link
7/23/2017 08:36:49 am

The Bonsai tree has a long and fascinating history. Bonsai first appeared in China over a thousand years ago when they were called 'pun-sai'. The early forms of bonsai tree might surprise you, they look nothing like they do now.

Reply
Fazeel Chauhan link
4/30/2018 02:18:34 pm

A few months ago, I started riding my bicycle in a suburb of southern california, near Pomona. And keep getting punctures from these thorns. It is frustrating to be stranded or to keep having to patch the punctures. But yes, Your article reminds us that the tree and leaves are beautiful.

Reply
James Ferguson
5/17/2021 07:39:25 pm

Ever thought of installing thorn-proof tires/tubes on your bike?

Ever thought of using a more appropriate venue to post advertising and falsehoods about divorce?

Reply
Debra link
4/30/2019 02:36:20 pm

Thanks for posting this Joel.

Reply
Christine
5/2/2020 11:38:12 am

I am a tree lover, and always have been. I was overjoyed to learn that my 2 1/2 acres of land, mostly occupied by trees of many varieties, has a new crop of sweet gum trees. I had noticed a few gum balls around the edges of the road, but not on my land. I have several young, beautiful sweet gum trees now. From time to time, people try to strong arm me into paying them to cut my trees down. I can barely be civil to them. We live in a rural area. My trees are healthy and beautiful. The nerve of them to try to con me into paying them to destroy my trees. For sure, they could double dip by selling these fine, straight beauties! I can't stand people who have a need to rob us of these great wonders of nature.

Reply
Michael link
5/12/2022 07:13:29 pm

Thanks for sharing this useful information! Hope that you will continue with the kind of stuff you are doing.

Reply
Grace
4/29/2024 05:21:51 pm

Thanks, nice article! How long will it take to decompose. I have a compost tumbler!

Reply
Karen Linder
1/26/2025 01:05:47 pm

I once found a hollow log crammed full of the gumballs from sweet gum trees. The critters obviously think pretty highly of them as a source of sustenance.

Reply
Escort Couple Elizabeth link
3/24/2025 08:05:18 pm

I love how you described your childhood memories with this tree.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Joel Gillespie

    South Carolina  native son, father of five daughters, Christian, explorer, writer, Clemson and USC fan, pilgrim through this beautiful and complicated world...

    Recent Posts
    Ten Ways to Die Gardening
     Favorite Gardening Books
    Tea Olive
    The Sand Hills
    What's Killing Your Lawn
    The Life Is in the Sap
    It's About the People

    Contact Me

      Or let me contact you

    Submit
Proudly powered by Weebly
Questions? Let's chat! ×

Connecting

You: ::content::
::agent_name:: ::content::
::content::
::content::