sweet-gum-tree, in botany: A genus of the polyandra order, belonging to the monoeia class of plants; and in the natural method ranking with those of which the order is doubtful. The male calyx is common, and triphyllous; there is no corolla, but numerous filaments; the female calyces are collected into a spherical form, and tetraphyllous; there is no corolla, but seven styles; and many bivalved and monoecious capsules collected into a sphere. There are only two species, both deciduous, viz. 1. The iliciflora, or the Virginia or maple-leaved liquidambar; a native of the rich moist parts of Virginia and Mexico. It will shoot in a regular manner to thirty or forty feet high, having its young twigs covered with a smooth, light-brown bark, while those of the older are of a darker colour. The leaves are of a lucid green, and grow irregularly on the young branches, on long footstalks: They resemble those of the common maple in figure; the lobes are all serrated; and from the base of the leaf a strong mid- rib runs to the extremity of each lobe that belongs to it. The flowers are of a kind of saffron colour: They are produced at the ends of the branches the beginning of April, and sometimes sooner; and are succeeded by large round brown fruit, which looks singular, but is thought by many to be no ornament to the tree.

2. The peregrinum, Canada liquidambar, or spleenwort-leaved gale, is a native of Canada and Pennsylvania. The young branches of this species are slender, tough, and hardy. The leaves are oblong, of a deep green colour, hairy underneath, and have indentures on their edges alternately very deep. The flowers come out from the sides of the branches, like the former; and they are succeeded by small roundish fruit, which seldom ripens in England.

Propagation. This may be performed either by seeds or layers; but the first method is the best. 1. We receive the seeds from America in the spring. Against their arrival, a fine bed, in a warm well sheltered place, should be prepared. If the soil is not naturally good, and inclined to be sandy, it should be wholly taken out near a foot deep, and the vacancy filled up with earth taken up a year before from a fresh pasture with the fowls, and all well rotted and mixed by being often turned, and afterwards mixed with a sixth part of drift or sea-fowl. A dry day being made choice of, early in March, let the seeds be sown, and the finest of this compost riddled over them a quarter of an inch deep. When the hot weather in the spring comes on, the beds should be shaded, and waterings given often, but in very small quantities, only affording them gentle, nay, a very small sprinkling, at a time. Millar says, the seeds of these plants never come up under two years. But, continues Hanbury, with this easy management, I hardly ever knew it longer than the end of May before the young plants made their appearance. The plants being come up, shading should still be afforded them in the parching summer, and a watering every other night; and this will promote their growth, and cause them to become stronger plants by the autumn. In the autumn, the beds should be hooped to be covered with mats in the severe frosts. These mats, however, should always be taken off in open weather; and this is all the management they will require during the first winter. The succeeding summer they will require no other trouble than weeding; though, if it should prove a dry one, they will find benefit from a little water now and then. By the autumn they will be grown strong enough to resist the cold of the following winter, without demanding the trouble of matting, if the situation is well sheltered; if not, it will be proper to have the hoops prepared, and the mats ready, against the black northern frosts, which would endanger at least their losing their tops. After this, nothing except weeding will be wanted; and in the spring following, that is, three years from their first appearance, they should be taken up (for they should not be removed before, unless some of the strongest plants be drawn out of the bed), and planted in the nursery a foot asunder, and two feet distant in the rows. Hoeing the weeds in the rows in the summer, and digging them in the winter, is all the trouble they will afterwards occasion until they are finally planted out. 2. These plants are easily increased by layers. The operation must be performed in the autumn, on the young summer's shoots; and the best way is by flitting them at a joint, as is practised for carnations. In a strong dry soil, they will be often two years or more before they strike root; though, in a fine light soil, they will be found to take freely enough. By this method good plants may be obtained; though it is not so eligible as the other, if we have the convenience of procuring the seeds.

Properties. The leaves emit their odoriferous particles in such plenty as to perfume the circumambient air; nay, the whole tree exhales such a fragrant transparent resin, as to have given occasion to its being taken for the sweet storax. These trees, therefore, are very proper to be planted singly in large opens, that they may amply display their fine pyramidal growth, or to be set in places near seats, pavilions, &c. The rosin was formerly of great use as a perfume, but is at present a stranger in the shops.