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These two are opposite sides of a leaf from a sweet gum tree. It is also sometimes called the "Red Gum", but that runs the risk, on the internet at least, of confusing it with an Australian tree. This tree is a fast growing native that almost always has a perfectly round trunk. It can grow to be quite large, 30" at the base and 60' tall. It is one of the few native trees that will give us a little color in the fall on the Gulf Coast, but only once in every three or four years. Most of the time it does what all the other native trees do, it goes from green to brown to leafless in a couple of weeks. For fall color we imported a tree from China, but I'll talk about it in another post.
If you think its best, Wendy, go ahead. I was breaking them up into separte threads because someone complained about load times. With all of them in one thread, it does take longer for all the pictures to load, but that doesn't make any difference to me personally.
pages load one at a time so it really isn't going to make that BIG a difference, Iro Koii. I just think that it makes more sense to be able to go to one thread when looking for a particular leaf!
Here is another leaf from a sweet gum tree. It is the same species, just a different tree. Why there is such a large variation in size and shape is something of a mystery to me.
BTW: when these leaves turn color they turn dark crimson. That may be why the tree is sometimes called a "red gum".
Iro I want to second the thanks..... I am gradually adding to folder of leaves......... I have lost count of how many times I have needed just this sort of thing to finish a project off!....... now if we could only do flowers this way he he he..... unfortunately they flatly refuse to be flattened [bustagut] [bustagut] [bustagut]
sfm
The sweet gum is also known as the black gum a bit farther north than GA, along about Virginia, Maryland, and northward. The tree is a semi-hard wood with a very straight, circular trunk (as Iro noted) with little foliage down low, meaning few or no knots in the main portion of the trunk. Combine that issue with the fact that the wood is about as tasteless as wood gets and you'll understand why it is the wood used in popsicle sticks, wooden ice cream spoons, and coffee stirrers. 10 feet long sections of the trunks are put on machines which look like giant lathes and they are 'peeled' into 3/32" thick sheets. Then the items are die cut from the sheets and put into large driers (which look like oversize clothes driers), with a bit of parafin, to be tumbled dry and be readied for packing. There...more than you ever wanted to know about popsicle sticks!
Iro Koii, it seems that we don't have the necessary module (yet) to 'merge threads'. Mark will look into that following the weekend, so in the meantime, keep those scans a coming!
Scanned Leaves 03 
These are great Iro Koii! I just might suggest that you put all the 'scanned leaves' into one thread as an easy resource for all to find! 
Linear Mode
