Is the Sweetgum Tree Triggered by Sunlight to Start Growing Again in the Spring

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American Sweetgum

Basic Information

Clarification:

Liquidambar styraciflua is known as the American sweetgum. It is a deciduous tree that can exist found in southeastern U.Southward., too as southern Mexico and Central America. The sweetgum is a fast-growing tree that develops a significant taproot that tolerate high moisture levels in soil. It is used for its lumber, and is ane of the about common sources of hardwood and plywood, but also produces spectacular colors equally it drops its leaves in the fall. The sweetgum is a monoecious species and is pollinated primarily by current of air. The sweetgum produces a resin that tin can harden and be used for chewing gum likewise as medicinal purposes. Some other fun facts nearly the American sweetgum include that information technology provides protection and food for many forest animals, including squirrels, deer, doves, and chipmunks. It can be especially resistant to attack by insects, which makes them very helpful trees in reforestation projects and reclamations of quondam mineral mines. Finally, sweetgum copse can fix nitrogen and promote soil health. Our American sweetgum is situated in a beautiful light-green area between OML and Kroon Hall. It offers a calming presence in the heart of the scientific discipline buildings at Yale, and is surely a special tree to observe, especially in the fall.

Surveyors:

Peri Shamlian, Ann Sarnak

Collected Data

Diameter at breast height:

Bark

The bawl of the American sweetgum is a gray-brown color, and becomes more than and more than ridged/fissured with increasing age. Ridges tend to form definitively for trees at about 25 years old. Younger trees, on the other manus, tend to take smoother bark, and occasionally displace cork-like projections, as shown in the picture.

Twigs & branches

Immature twigs and branches of the sweetgum accept characteristically corky ridges on which the fruits hang. The trunk of the sweetgum is rather straight; in small trees, branches protrude to create a pyramidal form and are pocket-size in diameter, while in one case the tree has aged, dominant branches sally and their diameters expand. Branches tend to droop a bit and can carry pocket-size thorns, and the twigs themselves tend to be ruddy/brown colored. If sweetgum blight develops, then the ends of those branches infected (usually toward the top) die. The twigs and branches are quite break-resistant.

Foilage

The fall foliage of the American sweetgum is quite spectacular, equally shown in the picture show to the left; leaves can exist xanthous, orangish, ruddy, and even purple during belatedly October and November before leaves are dropped for winter dormancy in December. Sweetgum leaves tend to have five lobes, arranged in a star-similar shape, with palmate venation (which means that each vein has roughly the same size through each lobe). Each leaf bract tends to be 4-viii inches, and the edges are serrated, meaning slightly jagged/notched around each leafage's border.

Reproductive Structures

The flowers of the American sweetgum bloom from March to May, and since the species is monoecious, the copse contain both pistillate and staminate flowers, but each flower contains one or the other sexual reproductive parts (i.e., a single flower doesn't have both pistil and stamen). The flowers tend to sit down on higher up branches. Male person flowers tend to sit down in a higher place the leaves, while female flowers tend to paw below them. Male flowers tin fall to the footing, while female flowers will usually stay on the tree, with specialized tube structures with viscid surfaces so as to take hold of the pollen which is dispersed past current of air. The female structure is what hardens upwards into what are colloquially known every bit "glue assurance," discussed further in the following section on sweetgum fruit. Sweetgum trees merely begin to flower at maturity around 20-30 years old.

Fruit

The "gum assurance," every bit described higher up, develop from female flower when they dry up and autumn to the ground. They tend to be almost 1.5 inches in diameter and are yellow/greenish while still on the tree and dark brownish in color once they fall, normally dropping in late wintertime/early bound. These fruits can litter the ground and are sometimes understood as a safety hazard. L. styraciflua "Rotundiloba" is the name of a cultivar (especially/selectively breeded sub-species) of sweetgum that actually does not have these fruits.

Seasons

Enquiry

Natural range of distribution:

Habitat:

The American sweetgum is primarily distributed in the eastern and southern regions of the U.s.. It grows in Connecticut (plain!), but can grow as far south as central Florida and eastern Texas, and as far w as Missouri and Oklahoma. The sweetgum is also found in central America, including Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Information technology is nearly populous in the American South, though, especially in the lower Mississippi Valley. The sweetgum tree can withstand a wide range of temperatures, given that winter temperatures in the Northeast can become below freezing and summer temperatures tin nigh 100 degrees Farenheit.

Origin, history, and uses:

The nameLiquidambar styraciflua means "liquid amber" and styraciflua is in reference to styrax balsam, which is a kind of resin produced past the sweetgum that tin can be chewed for medicinal and recreational purposes. The American sweetgum is native to North America, and its genus has only 5 other species included. According to the Arbor Twenty-four hour period Foundation, the first mention of the sweetgum in history came from the diary of a Spanish conquistadore in 1519, who watched a ceremony between Cortez and Montezuma, in which the "liquid amber" resin from a sweetgum tree was used. Indeed, in North American Indian medicine, the resin from sweetgum trees were used to treat several ailments, as well every bit for dental hygiene.

The other uses of the American sweetgum include lumber, veneer, and plywood, as well as fuel and pulpwood. The sweetgum, which also provides the cloth for hardwood, is one of the most of import trees for timber in the land. The reason for the sweetgum's name is that early American pioneers used to skin the bark off of the tree and scrape the gum off of the bark, which was used as chewing gum and also some other resin derivative from the tree is used in fragrances, pharmeceuticals, soaps and natural medicines.

The American sweetgum is often planted every bit a street tree in surburban areas, but it also can tend to form thickets within forests. The tree grows best in deep, moist soil (it can only tolerate very moderate drought), with a pH no higher than 7. There are several different popular cultivars of the sweeetgum, including "Burgundy" which is meliorate adjusted to the American South, "festival" with peach-colored foliage, "Moraine" which is all-time adjusted to cold, and Rotundiloba, which has no fruit production.

Phenology:

Mixed buds of the American sweetgum form in mid-September, and the tree drops its leaves in the fall, and goes fallow during winter. After dormancy, the small green flowers of the sweetgum brainstorm to bloom from March to May. From March to April, meiosis occurs to produce haploid gametes, with pollen dispersal occurring later on. This tree is monoecious, meaning that information technology has both staminate and pistillate structures in the same plant. These flower structures are quite flowers and can be hands damaged in the common cold. Fertilization occurs in late spring, and winged seeds, formed within the mature fruit and inside "seed assurance," are dispersed past the wind from September to November. Each of these seed balls can contain up to 50 seeds. Once the seed has germinated and the vegetative buds announced, at that place is a rapid growth of leaves, likewise during the bound fourth dimension.

References:

Arbor Twenty-four hour period Foundation, "American Sweetgum Liquidambar styraciflua," Tree Guide, Accessed April xix, 2016.

B.W. Wells Association, "News from Rockcliff Farm: Spring Flowers of the Sweet Glue Tree – Liquidambar styraciflua," April seven, 2016, https://bwwellsassociation.wordpress.com/2016/04/07/spring-flowers-of-th….

Carolina Nature, "Sweetgum," Accessed April 25, 2016 http://www.carolinanature.com/copse/list.html.

Cathy Heidenreich, "Sweetgum, Confederate Native Becoming Yankee Favorite," Geneva Arboretum Association, New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, Accessed April 22, 2016 http://world wide web.hort.cornell.edu/bjorkman/lab/arboretum/trees/sweetgum.html

Eastward. Richard Toole, "Sweetgum Blight," U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service Forest Pest Leaflet 37, April 1959, Accessed April 21, 2016, http://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fsbdev2_043681.pdf

Edward F. Gilman and Dennis G. Watson, "Liquidambar styraciflua: Sweetgum," Academy of Florida IFAS Extension, Accessed April 27, 2016 https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/st358.

Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, "Liquidambar styraciflua," Native Plant Database, The University of Texas at Austin, Accessed at April nineteen, 2016 http://www.wildflower.org/plants/upshot.php?id_plant=LIST2.

Missouri Botanical Garden Plant Finder, "Liquidambar styraciflua," Accessed Apr 20, 2016 http://world wide web.missouribotanicalgarden.org/PlantFinder/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?kempercode=c116.

Natasha Gilani, "Uses for a Sweetness Gum Tree," SF Gates, Accessed at http://homeguides.sfgate.com/uses-sweetness-glue-tree-44350.html.

Paul P. Kormanik, "Sweetgum," USDA Wood Services, Northeastern Expanse State and Private Forestry, Accessed April 27, 2016 http://www.na.fs.fed.us/pubs/silvics_manual/volume_2/liquidambar/styraci…

Ray R. Hicks, Jr. and Yard. Reines, "The Phenology of Sweetgum Liquidambar Styraciflua," Journal Series Paper No. 102 of University of Georgia Higher of Agriculture Experiment Stations.

The Ohio Country University College of Nutrient Agronomical, and Environmental Sciences, PocketGardener, "Liquidambar styraciflua," Accessed April 27, 2016, http://hvp.osu.edu/pocketgardener/source/clarification/li_iflua.html

Virginia Tech Department of Wood Resources and Ecology Conservation, "Sweetgum," Accessed April 27, 2016 http://dendro.cnre.vt.edu/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=53.

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Source: https://naturewalk.yale.edu/trees/altingiaceae/liquidambar-styraciflua/american-sweetgum-46