American Sweet Gum Tree Seeds

Place the sweetgum seeds inside a quart sized sealable plastic bag filled with 1 cup of moistened perlite.

American sweet gum tree seeds. According to the lazy landscaper these hard brown spiky balls that can create some serious hazards. It is also not related to the black gum nyssa sylvatica. Press the seeds into the perlite. The american sweetgum tree can reach mature heights of 60 to 75 feet.

Interestingly sweet gum tea was an herbal treatment for the flu and the cherokee made a tea out of the bark. Children call them gumballs or stickerballs and it s rare to find a child with a sweetgum growing nearby that hasn t had an unpleasant experience with the spiky pods. Liquidambar styraciflua rotundiloba is a sterile non fruiting culitivar of sweetgum that does not produce the famous spiky seed pods commonly called gumballs. It can t be too hard because we have little sweet gum sprouts all over the place.

Adults despise them as well because they can roll underfoot and cause a fall especially on paved surfaces. This is a great tree for lawns parks or as a street tree. The american sweetgum trees are classified as liquidambar styraciflua according to plant taxonomy. The downside to growing a sweetgum tree is the seed pods.

The sweet gum s primary liability according to the makers of this list are the thousands of spiny brown seed balls gum balls if you will that it casts upon the ground around it. This is a medium to fast growing tree averaging 2 to 3 feet per year in moist soil 1 to 2 feet per year in dry soil. Distinguishing characteristics are the spiky fruits and the star shaped leaves that put on a show in the fall. Sweet gum bark and leaves have some but the highest concentration is in the infertile seeds.

The tree prefers moist slightly acidic soil but. Store the bag inside a refrigerator for one to three. I have some around here and it is time to collect the seeds and try to start some seedlings. Prefers deep moist slightly acid soil full sun.

I have admired how massively enormous american sweet gum trees can grow. Birth control injections for sweet gum trees. Department of agriculture plant hardiness zones 5 to 9 in full sun. The star anise pod is about 7 shikimic acid the pine needles 3 and the sweet gum 1 7 to 3.

This is not related to the eucalyptus trees which are sometimes called gum trees. The infertile seeds found in each of the sweet gum s compound seed capsules are a naturally occurring source of shikimic acid one of the main ingredients in the manufacture of tamiflu.