Liquidambar styraciflua

Origin: North America. One of the most elegant deciduous trees with a straight trunk covered in well-spaced branches forming a regular shaped pyramid which with age becomes rounded. It can easily be trained into a tree with a clear stem topped with a rown that is initially pyramidal and then globular. The bark, green in the first year and then grey, cracks and becomes corky with ribs that gradually get deeper. Leaves: borne on long stalks which look like the maple leaf, with 5 acuminate lobes, slightly toothed, bright green from spring until autumn when they turn the most beautiful colours, from golden yellow, orange, bright red to purple. Flowers: form at the same time as the leaves, not very showy, neither the male ones (yellowish, round, grouped in racemes), nor the female ones which are grouped in short inflorescences. Fruit: hanging, round, initially green and then brown when ripe, resembles fruit of plane trees but smaller. Loves deep, moist, but not marshy, soil. Adapts to other types of soil provided not too dry and very calcareous. Use: planted singly or in groups of three, or together with other trees with colourful foliage as a street plant. It can also be planted in small gardens, as its growth can be contained by pruning which it withstands extremely well.