Sweet Gum Tree Balls Poisonous

Sweet gum balls start out plump and green but they dry as they mature.

Sweet gum tree balls poisonous. Are sweet gum balls poisonous. By linda from tryon nc. While you can t eat the balls or the seeds pioneers once peeled the bark and scraped the resin like solid to produce chewing gum and medicines. You painfully find them with your feet.

These seeds are food for about 25 species. The chemical breaks down into ethylene a naturally occurring compound that sweet gum produces when under stress. American sweetgum trees can be found throughout must of the eastern us. Are gumballs from the gumball tree poisonous.

The spines become even spinier and holes open up to reveal seeds inside the balls. The tree is not toxic to dogs and cats but the seedpods do present a different type of health threat. Introducing such a chemical alters sweet gum s natural hormone levels prompting the tree to abort its fruits. Perhaps it is time for some rehabilitation.

The only edible part of the tree is the dried sap which makes a fragrant bitter chewing gum. The gum seed pod are not toxic but that can be very irritating to the stomach and esophagus. 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. American sweetgum liquidambar styraciflua also known as american storax hazel pine bilsted redgum satin walnut star leaved gum alligatorwood or simply sweetgum is a deciduous tree in the genus liquidambar native to warm temperate areas of eastern north america and tropical montane regions of mexico and central america sweet gum is one of the main valuable forest trees in the.

The vicious seed pods have impaled many a forager and has done much to ruin the sweet gum s reputation. There us no fruit in a sweet gum i would know i live on a street with dozens o them actually the spiky things that fall off the tree are. This is a guide about uses for sweet gum balls. Sweet gum balls although they may look like prickly little seeds sweet gum tree balls are.

The balls of the trees are modified fruits that house the seeds until the balls ripen and release the seeds. It is fairly common to see them drink more when they are nauseous. If a sweet gum is flowering when the chemical induces ethylene production it responds by aborting the flowers. This combined with the extra food can be causing some stomach upset.

By linda 1 post march 18 2010. Those spiny balls seed pods dropped by your sweet gum tree can actually be put to good use. The sweet gum tree is the sand spur of the forest.