Not to be confused with its relative Sweet-gum, this species is much less commonly planted as an ornamental, and its tiny natural range makes it one of Europe's rarest trees. Sometimes called Turkish Sweet-gum or Liquid Storax. Introduced 1759.

Native to a small area in south-west Turkey, which already being very limited, was significantly further reduced during the twentieth century by agricultural development and dam-building projects. Also found growing on the Greek island of Rhodes.

Monoecious. Wind-pollinated, although insects are attracted to flowers. Seeds dispersed by wind and birds.

Medium (30m), typically long and slender-trunked, but smaller (15m) and bushier where introduced. Bark dark grey-brown, smooth with pale lenticels at first, becoming deeply fissured into small plates, sweetly fragrant when rubbed. Twigs glabrous and smooth (no corky wings); buds pointed, alternate. Foliage dense, turning bright yellow to orange-red in autumn. Leaves 4-9cm, palmate and star-like with 3-7 (usually five) narrow lobes, glabrous, with coarse rounded teeth, aromatic when crushed. Fruit a globose woody capsule (2.5cm), burr-like with smooth rims, held through winter. Sweet-gum and Oriental Plane differ in leaf size and capsule.

Grows best in warm, humid environments in deep fertile and well-drained soils. Thrives in full sun, but sensitive to drought. Its main limit in Britain and Ireland is its sensitivity to winter cold (-12°C) and spring frosts.

No notable associations where introduced.

Generally a healthy species. Wild populations are at risk due to low gene flow between the dispersed surviving remnants of forest that include this species.

For millennia, resin has been extracted by tapping trunks to manufacture a type of balsam known as storax, commercially named ‘styrax’. Traditionally used for fragrances, incenses and flavouring, and the well-known cough remedy ‘Friar’s Balsam’.