Sweet Gum Tree Balls Inside

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Sweet gum tree balls inside. Birth control injections for sweet gum trees. Processing wild crafted sweet gum tree balls to make homemade tamiflu. The only difference is sweetgum balls drop all fall and winter. The tree s dark grayish brown twigs bear unusual corky ridges that lend the tree a peculiar angularity.

Just like leaves they must fall so the tree can prep for new growth. These are a yard nuisance but i ve found a useful purpose for them. The tradeoff for these perks is a source of aggravation for some gardeners. For instance yesterday i finally looked up tree with spiky balls yeah i giggled a little inside at the search terms.

The sweet gum s primary liability according to the makers of this list are the thousands of spiny brown seed balls gum balls if you will that it casts upon the ground around it. I ve twisted my ankle on them. Round spiny fruits or balls that litter the ground making a simple walk across the yard a precarious one. By mid fall the balls are dead and seedless.

Summer shade and vibrant fall leaf color are merits of the sweet gum tree liquidambar styraciflua. If you re up for some experimenting sweet gum balls can been used to make a tea from boiling the young green seeds. Sweet gum balls start out plump and green but they dry as they mature. May 10 2017 explore linda durtschi s board sweet gum tree ball crafts on pinterest.

However the search is long overdue. We ve taken hundreds of walks in our neighborhood and have run into the same patches of spiky balls countless times. On our typical route there are 3 trees that bear these weird little balls. The infertile seeds of the sweet gum ball contain shikimic acid which is also contained in the same tree used to make tamiflu.

The spines become even spinier and holes open up to reveal seeds inside the balls. The spiky clusters are actually balls of fruit with tiny seeds inside that birds and squirrels snack on.