American Sweetgum is a low maintenance deciduous shade tree that is native to Eastern United States and Mexico. It typically grows to 60 to 80 feet tall with a straight trunk. Habit is pyramidal in youth, but it gradually develops an oval-rounded crown as it matures. American Sweetgum features glossy, long-stalked, deep green leaves, 4 to 7 inches with toothed margins. Each leaf has 5 to 7 pointed, star shaped lobes. Leaves are fragrant when bruised. Fall color at its best is a brilliant mixture of yellows, oranges, purples and reds. Branchlets may have distinctive corky ridges. Non-showy, monoecious, yellow-green flowers appear in spherical clusters in April-May. Female flowers give way to the infamous gum balls which are hard, spherical, bristly fruiting clusters to 1 1/2 inch diameter. Gum balls mature to dark brown and usually remain on the tree through the winter, but can create clean-up problems during the general period of December through April as the clusters fall to the ground. The small seeds from the Gum balls are eaten by birds, squirrels and chipmunks.
