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Liquidambar
Also called Sweet Gum, Vietnam Sweetgum, Sweetgums
Liquidambar is a genus of large deciduous trees (about 25 to 40 m tall) grown for their star-shaped leaves, which turn brilliant red, orange, yellow or purple in autumn, and for their spiky gumball fruit. The American sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua) is the most widely planted member, and the trees need full sun and deep, moist soil to thrive.
Liquidambar, commonly called sweetgum (star gum in the UK), gum, redgum, satin-walnut, styrax or American storax, is the only extant genus in the flowering plant family Altingiaceae and has 15 species. They were formerly often treated as a part of the Hamamelidaceae. They are native to southeast and east Asia, the eastern Mediterranean and North America. They are decorative deciduous trees that are used in the wood industry and for ornamental purposes.
Species within this genus are native to Southeast and east Asia, the eastern Mediterranean, and eastern North America. Countries and regions in which they occur are: Indonesia (Nusa Tenggara, Java, Sumatra); Malaysia (Peninsular Malaysia); Thailand; Cambodia; Vietnam; China (including Tibet, Fujian, Guizhou, Hainan, Yunnan, Zhejiang), Taiwan, South Korea, Laos, Myanmar, Eastern India, Bhutan, Turkey, Greece (Rhodes), Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Belize, Mexico, and the eastern United States (from Texas to Connecticut). It is regarded as an artificially introduced species in other parts of India, Italy, Spain, and Belgium. In cultivation, they can be seen in warm temperate and subtropical climates around the world.
The wood is used for furniture, interior finish, paper pulp, veneers and baskets of all kinds. The heartwood once was used in furniture, sometimes as imitation mahogany or Circassian walnut. It is used widely today in flake and strand boards. Sweetgum is a foodplant for various caterpillars. The American sweetgum is widely planted as an ornamental, within its natural range and elsewhere.
Chang’s Sweet Gum · Liquidambar cambodiana · Liquidambar excelsa · Oriental Sweetgum · American Sweetgum
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Liquidambar by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
