sweet gum noun A deciduous tree (Liquidambar styraciflua) of medium height whose bark is made into a medicinal tea and a gum chewed by children; the chewing gum itself.
1864 Leigh CW Letters (April 8) we are stationed on Nuce River it is a pine & sweet gum country. 1937 Hall Coll (Cosby TN) For flux [use] sweet gum bark and mutton taller melted. 1941 Walker Story of MT 67 The sweetgum is one of the most beautiful trees on the mountain. Its foliage, which turns to bronzy hue in autumn, gives a delicate touch to the rich colors of fall foliage. Its resinous sap has long been used by mountain children as their choicest chewing-gum. 1957 Broaddus Vocab Estill Co KY 77 = chewing gum. [1971 Krochmal et al. Medicinal Plants Appal 162 Water- or brandy-soaked twigs are chewed to clean the teeth in some areas of Appalachia.]
—Dictionary of Southern Appalachian English
Sweet gum trees abound in Wilson Holler. They’ve always been one of my favorite trees, even though The Deer Hunter sure wouldn’t agree with me.
I love the shape of their leaves. I also like the strangeness of the bark on younger trees.
The entry in the dictionary surprises me in a couple of ways.
First I can’t believe they didn’t mention sweet gum balls. The spiky spheres are hard on barefeet but make lovely Christmas decorations when dipped in flour or sprayed with paint.
Second, although I’ve been surrounded by sweet gums my entire life I have never known of anyone chewing the sap as gum. I sort of feel like I’ve missed out on something by not having that knowledge.
The Deer Hunter dislikes sweet gum for their propensity to sucker back out after being cut.
Even though the trees grow wild around our house and have a tendency to overwhelm the yard I love them. To borrow a line from the dictionary entry, I guess you could say I’m happy to live in a sweet gum country.
Last night’s video: Too Much Zucchini? Make Chocolate Zucchini Bread!
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If you have a belt driven lawn mower you will learn hate the hard balls that throw the belt.
Black gums tend to get holler when they get old. That makes them the favorite tree for wild honeybees to inhabit. Back in the old days people would cut them down, not just for the honey but for the bees too. They would cut a section of the tree and bring it, bees and all, home with them and set it up as a bee gum. I’ve always wondered if that is how people started calling them bee gum, because they came from a hollow black gum tree.
I reckon I’d best shut up now. It’s gonna be tomarr in a few minutes.
We had black gums on Wiggins Creek. They didn’t drop balls like a sweet gum does but the wood was similar, hard to saw and almost impossible to split. Black gum seeds are like a little berry that grows in the Spring. They have glossy leaves shaped sorta like a birch or a beach only more substantial. Do you have them over there?
Ed-we do but I don’t think as many as sweet gums 🙂
When I was young we chewed the gum. That’s the only benefit a sweet gum has.
We had them in the backyard at home when I was growing up. I think they were already there when Mama and Daddy bought the house, and the land was originally part of a dairy farm. The neighborhood was built to satisfy the post-WWII housing shortage. The gum balls are hard on bare feet, and the wood doesn’t burn well.
There is a road in my town named Sweet Gum Road.
The a road in my town named Sweet Gum Road.
Yes! I’ve never heard of anyone chewing the sap of a sweet gum. Most people I know who have to mow the yard hate them, but I think they’re one of the prettiest trees ever.
We have those trees growing around our house and I’m like Deer Hunter, I don’t like them sticky balls. They are all over my garden and yard. The tree leaves may be pretty, but them balls are just a pain to get rid of. But, I’m glad you found some creative ways to make them sticky balls into a decoration.
We had several right beside our house when we moved here 16 years ago and when the balls were falling off if we had a wind come, they would hit our house and because it’s vinyl siding, it sounded like rocks hitting the side of it. We ended up having them cut down and stumps ground. I never knew you could chew the sap. Also, I have heard folks call them, chainey ball trees. I actually called them that when I was young. That may could have been meant for another type of tree but that’s what we use to call them.
When I visited near the mountains, I parked under a tree at a church while trying to read the map. Lost and irritated, I stepped outside and noticed the ‘balls’ outside in the trees and on the ground and collected a bag full for Christmas – just too pretty not to use them somehow. Never saw them before but learned it pays to see things like a child when you are stressed as an adult over temporary problems. I sure enjoyed my ‘lost’ trip and remember it clearly all these years later as a great time-out on our trip!
We have chewed the sap–hadn’t thought of that in many years. There was a big sweet gum at my mother’s house.
Beyond being an attractive tree, you don’t hear much good said about sweet gums. they take forever to dry, won’t split straight, and don’t burn hot. Some call them “weed trees.” I was therefore surprised to read a few years ago about a Georgia company that made chop sticks out of sweet gum wood for sale in the Far East, where there was a shortage of chop sticks. The article described sweet gum wood as ideal for that purpose. Who’d have thought it?
Boy, are we ever poles apart on sweet gum trees. While I’ll give you a nod on use of the balls for decoration, the flip side of that is that I know of nothing better designed to “throw” the belt on a riding mower than those balls. Then there are the sprouts Matt hates, the propensity of the roots to grow above the ground and wreak havoc with lawn mowers, and the fact that in many areas as a succession tree they will overwhelm pretty much everything else–even pines. Luna moths notwithstanding, they offer minimal benefit for wildlife and certainly aren’t even in the same universe as nut-bearing trees. As a landowner with a modest amount of hunting acreage, I can assure you they are the bane of my existence, choking out more beneficial trees even with considerable effort to counter them. Cut ’em down and they come right back, in spades. On top of all that, they are about the sorriest excuse for firewood imaginable. The wood doesn’t burn well, doesn’t cure well, pops like crazy when burning, and is virtually impossible to split.
For my part, they are a plague. Matt has them pegged.
I am in full agreement with everything Jim Casada said in his comment. When I used to cut pulp wood the old time way (5ft length and stack it crossways across the frame behind the cab) I would sometimes cut sweet gum to sell along with the pine pulpwood. I have threw the belt off my mower a lot of times and you don’t t split sweet gum, you just tear it apart hopefully with a hydraulic splinter. The grain of a sweet gum is a matted up mess. I have never seen a large sweet gum tree blown up by the roots during a storm. I believe they would sprout up in an asphalt parking lot. The only good thing I can think of to say beside being blown over is the leaves can be pretty when they change color in the fall of the year. When growing up I did chew gum that came from sweet gum sap.
Another way of using the balls is to glue rounded toothpicks in so that geometric shapes can be assembled. We made these 60 years ago and either painted or sprayed the artificial snow on them.
you have missed out not chewing sweet gum. I rarely found it at the right consistency, but when I did it was better than any store bought for flavor. If it was too sticky, it would glue teeth together. It tastes about like the leaves smell when crushed.
If the Deer Hunter really wants to kill the sweet gum stumps, brush glyphosate on the stump after cutting. My brother hates them for the same reason. If he wants to kill the tree without cutting, drill a 1/2″ hole in the tree at an angle and put the liquid in. I for one love sweet gums and most other trees except for tree of heaven. Tree of heaven gets the second treatment. To keep from getting bad comments, tree of heaven is a Chinese tree that is very invasive and smothers native trees out.
I am a tree lover too, I especially like beinf surrounded by old growth trees.
I guess commercial gum was available by the time I was born because we never chewed sweet gum sap either. I do like the tree but it seems like husbands don’t care for mowing around them because of those balls.
I agree with you Tipper, I have lived around sweet gum my whole life and never knew about chewing the sap. But I’ve hated those balls ever since my dad planted on near my mother’s clothes line, and in the summer we never wore shoes but I hung out a lot of clothes.
Sweet gums or kudzu, which is the worser?
I have heard of making jelly out of kudzu. I do know of someone that had 1×4 boards sawed out of green sweet gum and using the boards for slats across rafters and nailing his roofing tin onto the slats. He was told that when the wood cured you could not pull the nails out of the wood and it would last forever as long as it don’t start getting wet. This was about 35 years ago and I have not saw any loose tin on his barn. Other than that, I think they may be good to cuss.
My parents had a sweet gum tree in their front yard as I was growing up. My mom had it cut down after I moved out because she was tired of the spikey gum balls. I always loved them. So before the tree was gone, I gathered a big bowlful of the gum balls. They have moved across the country twice with me – from San Diego to Iowa, back to San Diego, and now they are here in North Carolina with me. Mine are still their natural color. Thank you for this walk down memory lane!
Donna. : )
Like the Deer Hunter, I have mostly found sweet gum to be a nuisance around the house. In the forest it’s a different story. Even though the wood burns good, its wavy, interwoven grain makes it almost impossible to split–even green. That very fact, however, makes it desirable for use as rail road cross ties since it resists splitting when the spikes are driven into it. A procurement forester friend of mine buys all the quality sweet gum he can get.
One of my most treasured things is my bowl of sweet gum balls my mama picked up and painted them white. I always get them out at Christmas. My grandmother used a twig as a toothbrush. Enjoy watching all your videos! Thank you!
I myself am a PROUD TREE HUGGER! I have been known to hug a tree from time to time or even talk to it. If I love you, I may hug you so why is any living thing treated less that offers great joy, shade, beauty of the Creator to behold and cleans the air?I think we have gum trees here and I may have mistaken them for a maple. I like the sassafras tree! It’s leaves look like mittens to me and the deer think they are tasty too. BTW, Tipper, I would for a proven fact rather be hemmed in by trees on every side than set in the likes of NYC or some awful place overladen with people who make for a wretched existence mostly. Trees or people? Gotta take the trees every time. We had SUN yesterday so thanks NEFARIOUS powers that be… lol
Sweet gum balls can Also be wrapped in a bit of aluminum foil to make pretty little Christmas ornaments. I used to do that when I was a kid.
My grandmother liked making toothbrushes from sweet gum twigs to brush her teeth.
Sweet gum trees are one of the host plants for Luna moths. they lay their eggs in the thick trunk bark in fissures, and the caterpillars grow through all five of their instars (life stages) chewing leaves from that same mother tree and growing into fat green cuties. they wrap themselves up in a leaf and transform and emerge as pale green beautifully delicate moths.
When you place a luna moth onto the trunk of a sweet gum, you see how the plant and the insect have matched to each other.
Love the Luna moth! They also like moon flowers. I’d see them out there on them at night last year when I had moon flowers. Gum trees and Luna moths a perfect match from heaven!
Wow…have lived around or near sweet gum trees most of my adult life and have hated those little rotten balls for years. I didn’t think about doing anything with those ‘rotten’ balls til you gave me the idea. For sure gotta try it. Thanks…