This amber resin is a large aspect of the uses for the sweet gum. “Amber chemically determined to be resin from Liquidambar styraciflua has been found been found in deposits in at the Cretaceous Tertiary boundary”. This means that its resin is one of the first angiosperm unequivocally identified. This resin has historically been referred to as American styrax or storax as a natural chewing gum to preserve their teeth. The only way to harvest the resin is by bruising. The bark is severely bruised in early summer and the fragrant resin that diffuses through the inner bark is removed in fall by mechanically pressing or extracted in boiling water.