North Carolina › Altingiaceae › Liquidambar
Sweetgum
Native. The Liquidambar genus feeds 40 caterpillar species in NC, draws 2 bee species in the Southeast; 4 bird species have recorded feeding interactions with this genus in North America. Strong for caterpillars.
Insect resources, birds and habitat
Bars show recorded counts on a linear scale. Each category runs from zero to its largest count in this NC plant catalog; the same scale applies across plant pages. Compare plants within a category, not bar lengths across categories. Zero records may mean missing research. Growth form is shown as text.
Additional insect evidence
Bar length follows recorded-name count on the displayed scale, not ecological importance. Unknown is not zero support. Flower visits do not confirm feeding or pollination. Named insects may include historical or unresolved names.
Provisional additional insect credit: +0 (maximum 5). Scoring rule and limitations. Study references and interaction records are included in this plant’s data record.
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Overwintering: no reviewed hardiness guidance loaded. Heat tolerance is not assessed.
| NC status (state rank) | S5 |
| Grows in | wet or dry ground (wetland occurrence proxy: FAC; not a measured watering requirement) |
| Soil pH range | 4.5–7.0 |
| Light | part sun to full sun (Niinemets & Valladares 2006 shade tolerance 1.59/5) |
| Recorded in NC | Coastal Plain, Mountains, Piedmont; recorded in 71 counties (USDA) |
| Observed in NC | Caterpillars found on 10.5% of 7,155 branch surveys (Caterpillars Count!). Shown for reference; not part of the score, because survey results depend heavily on site and method. |
| Single-host caterpillars on genus | 5 |
| How the number was set | Base score 71, no adjustment (common in NC). Scoring uses relative ranks; display bars show counts. Caterpillar, bee and bird data are by genus. |
- Vascular Plants of North Carolina, plant list export 2026-09-01 (LeGrand, Sorrie & Howard)
- Shropshire & Tallamy 2025, Lepidoptera of North America north of Mexico, ZooKeys 1261 (ODbL)
- Noori, Seltmann & Orr 2026, A curated and integrated dataset for exploring global bee-plant interactions (GloBI), Zenodo, CC BY 4.0
- Smith, Bachelder, Russell, Morales, Mosher & Seltmann 2024, Bee-Specialization-Modeling v0.6.1 (specialist host table compiled from J. Fowler's pollen specialist bee lists), Zenodo, CC BY 4.0
- Hurlbert, Olsen, Sawyer & Winner 2021, Avian Diet Database, Scientific Data 8: 260 (CC0)
- USDA NRCS PLANTS Database, growth habit (public domain)
- Narango, Tallamy & Shropshire 2020, Few keystone plant genera support the majority of Lepidoptera species, Nature Communications
- Caterpillars Count! (UNC Chapel Hill), Foliage Arthropod Data, NC sites, accessed 2026-09-23 (CC0). Data were provided by Caterpillars Count! and the many participants who contribute to its foliage arthropod monitoring program.
- U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, National Wetland Plant List 2022, Eastern Mountains & Piedmont
- USDA NRCS PLANTS Database
- Niinemets & Valladares 2006, Tolerance to shade, drought and waterlogging of temperate Northern Hemisphere trees and shrubs, Ecological Monographs (CC0 appendix)
Machine-readable: liquidambar-styraciflua.json. Cite as: Quercus Score v0.6.4, Liquidambar styraciflua, North Carolina, 2026-09-24.
Quercus Score v0.6.4 · built 2026-09-24 · North Carolina beta · sources and limitations on every page