Amerika Amber Ağaci

Liquidambar styraciflua L. Sp. PI. 999. 1753
Liquidambar gummif era Salisb. Prodr. 393. 1796. Liquidambar barbata Stokes, Bot. Mat. Med. 4: 332. 1812. Liquidambar macrophylla Oerst. Am. Cent. 16. 1863. Liquidambar styraciflua mexicana Oerst. loc. cit, 1863.
A tree attaining a maximum height of 50 m. and a trunk-diameter of 1.5 m. ; bark somewhat corky, deeply fissured and usually ridged, the young branches often winged with thick corky ridges ; leaf-blades variable in size, suborbicular in outline, deeply palmately 3-7-lobed, cordate to nearly truncate at the base, dark-green and glabrous above, paler beneath, when young pilose, but with age becoming glabrous with the exception of the ferruginous tomentum, which is persistent in the axils of. the primary veins, the lobes triangular to lanceolate, acute to acuminate at the apex ; petioles about as long as the blades ; stipules entire, lanceolate, 1-1.4 cm. long, caducous; racemes or panicles of staminate heads 5-7 cm. long, clothed with a rufous tomentum ; pistillate flowers in globular longpeduncled heads ; fruit pendulous, 3-4 cm. in^ diameter, persistent during the winter, armed with hardened introrse stigmas ; capsules dehiscing during the fall ; fertile seeds about 1 cm. long, marked with resinous ducts ; sterile seeds brownish, 2 mm, long and as broad, often sharply pointed at the ends, numerous.
Type locality : Virginia.
Distribution : Connecticut to Missouri, Florida and Texas, and southward in the mountains of central and southern Mexico and in Guatemala.