growing in Tower Grove Park, St. Louis, that about half the trees either showed no sign of the corky wings or in some cases only a slight trace of them. In Kew Gardens the same difference is noticeable in trees of the same age growing close together, some being without corky-winged branchlets, while others have them much developed.
The leaves usually turn a most brilliant colour in autumn, the tint being red purple, or yellow.
Identification
In summer the maple-like but alternately-placed leaves are unmistakable. In winter (Plate 200, Fig. 2) the following characters are available : Twigs moderately stout, slightly angled, greenish, glabrous ; lenticels scattered, prominent. Leaf-scars alternate, obliquely set on projecting pulvini, arcuate or semicircular, marked by three bundle-dots. Terminal bud about ⅝ inch long; lateral buds smaller, varying in size, and directed outwards from the twig at an angle of about 45°; all ovoid, acute at the apex, and composed of six to seven imbricated scales, which are green with brown margins, vaulted on the back, shining, glabrous, ciliate, and often minutely cuspidate at the apex.
Short shoots are numerous in this species, and, unlike the long shoots, are pubescent. All the shoots show at the base ring-like marks, indicating where the accrescent scales of the terminal bud of the preceding year have fallen off in spring.
Varieties
Though Oersted considered the Mexican and Guatemalan trees to constitute distinct forms, no varieties have been clearly made out. The species occurs over a wide extent of territory and in diverse climates; and certain differences are observable in the shape, size, and pubescence of leaves in wild specimens; but these scarcely warrant the division of the species into geographical forms. In dry regions in Mexico the under surface of the leaf is covered with dense pubescence. Leaves with only three lobes occur on adult trees in Mexico and Guatemala; but as three-lobed leaves are frequently borne on young shoots of the common form, this peculiarity scarcely merits the rank of a variety.(A.H.)
Distribution
The Liquidambar or Sweet Gum,’ as it is usually called in the United States, has a very wide range of distribution. Its most northerly station is, according to Sargent,” near Newhaven, Connecticut, where it only grows near the coast as a small tree, 40 to 60 feet high. Farther south it extends westwards as far as S.E. Missouri and Arkansas, and in the south to Florida and Texas, reappearing on the mountains of Mexico and Guatemala. In the maritime region of the South Atlantic States and in the Lower Mississippi basin it is one of the most abundant
1 Also known as Red Gum.
2 Garden and Forest, ii. p. 232.
