Re: [gardeners] A primer on sweetgum trees
George Shirley (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Mon, 16 Sep 2002 11:29:06 -0500
Should also have noted that I used to cut small pieces of limb from them
for my great-grandmother to use to clean her teeth. Another use was to
wet a frayed end of tiny sweetgum limb and then stick it in her jar of
Garrett's Sweet Snuff and then paint it inside her lower lip. I used to
hate for the sweet old lady to kiss me goodnight because I was afraid
she was going to get snoose juice on me. She was a dear old soul though
and has been gone since 1957.
When I was a kid we used to chew the thick sap of the sweetgum tree like
chewing gum.
And you're right about messing up a sidewalk, they drop sap all the time
and it is sticky as the dickens.
George
Ron Hay wrote:
>
> Hi, again,
>
> And those trees are murder on sidewalks, even if they are only one of a
> handfull of trees that turn color in SoCal...so I guess you do mean
> liquidamber, the leaves of which tree smell sort of like turpentine
> when you crush them in your hands.
>
> Ron