CORNACE^ 707 



1. NYSSA, I.. 



Trees, with alternate leaves eouduplicate in the bud, petiolate, sometimes remotely 

 angulate or toothed, mostly crowded at the euds of the branches. Flowers polygarao- 

 dioecious, minute, greenish white; staminate on slender pedicels from the axils of 

 minute caducous bracts, in simple or compound clusters on long axillary peduncles 

 bibracteolate near the middle or at the apex or sometimes without bractlets; calyx 

 disciform or cup-shaped, the limb o-toothed; petals 5, imbricated in the bud, equal 

 or unequal, ovate or linear-oblong, thick, inserted on the margin of the conspicuous 

 pulvinate entire or lobed disk, erect; stamens 5, exserted; filaments filiform; an- 

 thers oblong; ovary 0; pistillate flowers on axillary peduncles, in 2 or few-flowered 

 clusters, sessile or nearly so, in the axils of conspicuous bracts and furnished with 1 

 or 2 small lateral bractlets, or solitary and surrounded by 2-4 bractlets; calyx-tube 

 campanulate, sometimes slightly urceolate, the limb o-toothed; petals small, thick, 

 and spreading; stamens 5-10; filaments short; anthers fertile or sterile; disk less 

 developed than in the staminate flower, depressed in the centre; ovary 1 or 2-celled; 

 style terete, elongated, recurved, stigmatic toward the apex or the inner face; raphe 

 ventral. Fruit oblong, fleshy, urceolate at the apex; flesh thin, oily, acidulous; stone 

 thick-walled, bony, terete or compressed, ridged or winged, 1 or rarely 2-celled, 

 usually 1-seeded. Seed filling the cavity of the stone; seed-coat pale; embryo 

 straight. 



Nyssa with five species is confined to the eastern United States and to southern 

 Asia, where a single species is distributed from the eastern Himalayas to the island 

 of Java. The American species produce tough wood, with intricately contorted and 

 twisted grain. 



Nyssa, the name of a nymph, was given to this genus from the fact that one of 

 the species grows in water. 



CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES. 



Pistillate flowers in 2 or few-flowered clusters ; fruit blue, not more than f ' long ; stone 

 with low broad rounded ridges. 



Stone indistinctly ridged ; leaves linear-oblong to oval or obovate. 



1. N. sylvatica (A, C). 

 Stone prominently ribbed ; leaves oblanceolate to oblong or elliptic. 



2. N. biflora (C). 

 Pistillate flowers solitary; fruit 1' or more long; stone with prominent wings or acute 

 ridges. 



Fruit red ; stone with prominent wings ; leaves oblong-oval or obovate, usually obtuse 



at the apex. 3. N. Ogeche (C). 



Fruit purple ; stone with acute ridges ; leaves oval or oblong, acute or acuminate at the 



apex. 4. N. aquatica (A, C). 



1. Nyssa sylvatica, Marsh. Tupelo. Pepperidge. 



Leaves crowded at the ends of lateral branchlets or remote on vigorous shoots, 

 linear-oblong, lanceolate, oval or obovate, acute or acuminate or sometimes con- 

 tracted into short broad points at the apex, wedge-shaped or occasionally rounded at 

 the base, entire, with slightly thickened margins, or rarely coarsely dentate, when 

 they unfold coated with rufous tomentum, especially on the lower surface, or pubes- 

 cent or sometimes nearly glabrous, and at maturity thick and firm, dark green and 

 very lustrous above, pale and often hairy below, principally along the broad midribs 



