Decorative, Deciduous Seed Balls

     Two kinds of deciduous trees in the Middle Atlantic States have decorative seed balls persisting through winter.  Those species are sycamores and sweet gums.  Each type of tree has several beauties, but their seed balls is what they have in common.  Each ball of both species has a long, slender stem like pendant earrings or jewelry.
     Sycamore trees have pale-gray bark that peels off in patches, revealing the young, lighter bark underneath.  That falling away of the older bark causes a distinctive and unique, mottled appearance on sycamores' trunks and limbs.  And since this species mostly inhabits floodplains along rivers and creeks, where it is an associate of black walnut trees, silver maple trees and ash-leafed maple trees, sycamores' patterned bark indicates the presence of water.
     Sycamores are one of the most massive and magnificent of trees in eastern North America.  They can grow to be over 80 feet tall and up to eight feet in diameter at the base.  And each tree's many one-inch, beige seed balls are composed of many seeds attached  to a hard, rounded "button" that gives this species its name of buttonwood.  Each seed has fluff that carries it away on the wind.  Most seeds never sprout because they are eaten by mice and small, seed-eating birds, including a variety of wintering finches and sparrows.
     The leaves of sweet gum trees have five, sharp-pointed lobes in a unique design.  Sweet gum foliage is striking in October, with red, yellow and maroon colors, usually all on the same tree.  Sweet gums grow best on floodplains, but also do well in moist, upland soil.  This species is often planted as a shade tree on lawns, for its lovely shapes and beautiful autumn leaves.  It can grow up to 80 feet tall, with a pyramidal shape.
     Each of the many seed balls on each sweet gum tree is about an inch across.  Each ball has several woody, sharp-pointed capsules, which gives it a bristly or spiny appearance.  Tiny, dark seeds fall out of those little, dark-brown containers when they open, but most of those seeds are eaten by mice and small, seed-eating birds, including a variety of wintering finches and sparrows.  Those birds often hang up-side-down on the seed balls still on the trees to eat the seeds in the openings.  And those birds add much beauty and interest to sweet gum trees in winter.
     Sycamores and sweet gums have decorative, dangling seed balls through winter.  Those balls add beauty to the trees and the habitats they inhabit.