Gum Tree Spiky Balls

Go out with a bucket and fill it with seed pods and in the spring you may just use some.

Gum tree spiky balls. A forty foot tall sweet gum tree rises from the northeast corner of my back yard. The fruits can add ornamental value while they remain on the tree but they create a litter problem when they fall. Some of north america s largest native deciduous trees have fruits that are prickly balls. A fast growing tree the sweetgum offers plenty of shade while growing well in a vast range of soils and moisture levels.

If you re up for some experimenting sweet gum balls can been used to make a tea from boiling the young green seeds. The round fruit balls are produced from fertilized flowers. Just like leaves they must fall so the tree can prep for new growth. On this early spring day the tree is still a skeleton although leaf buds are just beginning to emerge and dozens of sweet gum balls dangle from its naked branches like shriveled christmas tree ornaments.

As a monoecious plant a sweet gum bears male and female flowers. The spiky seed pods from the sweetgum tree are not only fascinating to look at they can actually help out in the garden. Six great things to use sweetgum balls for. The spiky gum balls of the sweet gum tree are annoying to anyone who steps on them.

By mid fall the balls are dead and seedless. Buckeye horsechestnut aesculus chestnut castanea or sweet gum liquidambar styraciflua. Hundreds more lie scattered throughout the grass and spill out onto the alleyway asphalt where most are flattened by car wheels. The one major flaw of this deciduous tree is the hundreds of spiny woody.

This means that only one tree is needed for the flowers to be pollinated and a single tree can produce the spiky fruits even when another sweet gum tree is not in sight. The spiky clusters are actually balls of fruit with tiny seeds inside that birds and squirrels snack on. If you ve encountered some round spiny balls under a tree or maybe still on the plant and you re wondering what it could be it s likely one of several options. Are sweetgum tree balls edible.

To empty simply spread wires and the sweet gum balls are emptied into the trash see our large nut wizard dumper for an inexpensive emptying tool that hooks on to a 5 gallon bucket. But in flu season they re also a source of homemade tamiflu. The hard spiky protuberances can prick your fingers and make it hard work to extract edible seeds. The infertile seeds of the sweet gum ball contain shikimic acid which is also contained in the same tree used to make tamiflu.