Black Gums and Sweet Gums

     Black gum trees and sweet gum trees have some characteristics in common, though they are not in the same genus of trees.  They both are deciduous trees and have beautiful foliage in summer and autumn.  Both are native to the eastern United States and planted on some lawns because of their lovely leaves.  Both provide food for certain kinds of wildlife.  And, I must admit, they, along with red and sugar maples and stag-horn sumacs, produce my most favorite colored leaves of all the tree species in southeastern Pennsylvania. 
     Black gum trees, along with red maples and white oaks, grow mostly in bottomlands with moist, loamy soil.  Black gums have beautifully glossy, simple leaves in summer, some of which turn red during August.  Their foliage is one of the first to turn colors as the green chlorophyll dies in them.  Black gums leaves' reach a peak of turning colors by early October, helping make wooded bottomlands strikingly, breathtakingly red.
     Some black gum trees have one gender or the other, but not both, while other individuals have both genders.  In spring, a variety of bees and other insects collect nectar and pollen from black gum blooms.  The bees, of course, turn some of that nectar to honey to feed their larvae.  And all those insects that visit black gum blossoms pollinate their blooms.
     The fertilized flowers of black gums produce greenish drupes in clusters of two or three each.  Those drupes turn dark-blue when ripe and are eaten by white-tailed deer, black bears, rodents, a variety of birds and other creatures during fall and winter.  Those birds and mammals make black gums all the more interesting to experience, both in the wild and on lawns.
     Sweet gum trees are native to the southeastern part of the United States, except in the Appalachian Mountains.  This tree species has five-pointed, star-shaped leaves that turn red, orange, yellow or maroon, often all those colors on the same tree.  Other sweet gums will have, mostly, red, yellow or orange foliage.  But all these trees reach their peak of color in the latter half of October and into November when they are absolutely exquisite. 
     During summer, sweet gums produce many green, spiny-looking seed balls that die and turn brown by autumn.  As they die, each one of those seed balls shrivels and opens in several places, which releases their innumerable, tiny black seeds that are alive, mature and ready to sprout if they fall on good soil.  Some of those bristly balls remain in the trees when they release their seeds, while others open on the ground where they fell by the hundreds.
     Many individuals of several kinds of seed-eating birds consume sweet gum seeds, either in the trees or on the ground.  Permanent resident house finches and American gold finches, and wintering white-throated sparrows, dark-eyed juncos, common redpolls and pine siskins are some of those seed-eating birds that help make sweet gum trees interesting in winter, again both in the wild and on lawns.
     Look for the beautiful autumn leaves on these two species of trees this fall, or succeeding ones.  And watch for interesting wildlife feeding on their drupes or seeds.  These trees, like most plants, are attractive and intriguing in themselves, and in the animals they feed and shelter.