English: American sweetgum; American storax; Hazel pine; Bilsted; Redgum; Satin-walnut; Star-leaved gum; Alligatorwood; Sweetgum.
Name: styraciflua meaning "flowing with storax".
Nahuatl: Ocotzocuahuitl, meaning tree that gives pine resin from ocotl (pine), tzotl (resin), cuahuitl (tree).
Region: eastern North America, tropical montane regions of Mexico and Central America; central America, Honduras, El Salvador, Mexico, southern north America, Connecticut, Illinois.
Habitat: warm temperate climate; swampy woods, inundated annually; rich bottom lands; moist or wet, often mixed forest, mostly on mountain sides or along streams, often associated with pine or oak; elevations from 900 to 2100 metres; sunny sheltered position; tolerant of salt-laden winds; succeeds in light shade; prefers a neutral to acid soil; shallow soils overlying chalk; intolerant of forest fires.
Use: wood, high quality timber for furniture, flooring, fruit dishes, veneer, fuel; resin for incense, perfumery, soap, adhesive, tooth cleaner, chewing gum, stabilizer for cakes; ornamental, especially for its autumn foliage.
BotanyDeciduous tree; medium-sized to large tree, 15 to 20 to 40 m tall; may live to 400 years; symmetrical shape and crown, egg shape.
Stem: 60 to 90 cm in diameter; exudes terebinthine juice or red gum; bark light brown tinged with red and sometimes gray with dark streaks; deeply fissured; with scaly ridges; branches carry layers of cork; branchlets are pithy, many-angled, winged, and at first covered with rusty hairs, finally becoming red brown, gray or dark brown; wood bright, reddish brown, heavy, straight, satiny, close-grained, but not strong, with black grain, with beautiful polish, warps badly in drying, liable to decay outdoor; sapwood nearly white.
Leaves: five-pointed star-shaped; long, broad, 7 to 20 cm; petiole 6 to 10 cm; rich dark green, smooth, shiny, turn brilliant orange, red, purple in the autumn, characterized as conflagration, like Acer and Fraxinus; with glandular serrate teeth; base is truncate or slightly heart-shaped; come out plicate, downy, pale green, bright green when full grown, smooth, shining above, paler beneath; contain tannin; give a resinous fragrance when bruised.
Flowers: unisexual; greenish; 2 to 4 cm in diameter; from spring to autumn, sometimes persisting into winter; staminate flowers in terminal racemes, destitute of calyx and corolla, surrounded by hairy bracts, stamens indefinite, filaments short, anthers introrse; pistillate flowers in a solitary head on a slender peduncle borne in the axil of an upper leaf, with a two-celled, two-beaked ovary, carpels into a long, recurved, persistent style, ovaries all more or less cohere and harden in fruit, many ovules but few mature.
Fruits: hard, spiked, dry, globose; 2 to 4 cm in diameter; composed of 40 to 60 capsules; each containing one to two small seeds; has a pair of terminal spikes; each capsule has a small hole in the compound fruit; nicknamed "burr balls, bir balls, gum balls, space bugs, sticker balls", spike balls"; hangs on the branches during the winter; resembling
Platanus occidentalis.
Seeds: ± 4 mm thick, winged, wind-dispersed.
Dispersion: by goldfinches, purple finches, squirrels, chipmunks.