CORNACEiE 



709 



Distribution. Borders of swamps in wet imperfectly drained soil, and soutli- 

 ward often on high wooded mountain slopes; valley of the Kennebec River, Maine, 

 to southern Ontario, central Michigan, and southeastern Missouri, and southward to 

 the shores of the Kissimee River and Tampa Bay, Florida, and to the valley of the 

 Brazos River, Texas; of its largest size on the southern Appalachian Mountains. 



Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental tree in the eastern states. 



2. Nyssa biflora, Walt. 



(^Nyssa sylvatica, var. hijiora, Silva N. Am. v. 76.) 



Leaves oblanceolate, oblong, elliptic or rarely ovate, acute or acuminate or 

 occasionally rounded at the narrow apex, cuneate or rounded at the gradually nar- 

 rowed base, and entire, when they unfold silky-villose above and hoary-tomentose 

 beneath, soon becoming glabrous, dark yellow-green and lustrous on the upper, 



paler and sometimes glaucous on the lower surface, 2'-4' long and |'-1' wide, with 

 prominent midribs and numerous slender veins; their petioles stout, ^-^' long. 

 Flo"wers appearing when the leaves are nearly fully grown; staminate on slender 

 villose pedicels, in many-flowered loose clusters on slender hairy peduncles I'-l^' in 

 length; pistillate in pairs on rather stouter peduncles usually about V long; calyx of 

 the staminate flower disciform; petals ovate-oblong, rounded at the apex, white, 

 erect or slightly spreading, early deciduous. Fruit solitary or in pairs, on pedun- 

 cles I'-l^' long, oval or ellipsoidal, dark blue, lustrous, about |-' long, with acrid 

 pulp; stone oval, compressed, narrowed at the ends, and prominently ribbed. 



A tree, rarely more than 30 high, with a slender trunk gradually tapering up- 

 ward from a swollen and much enlarged base, small spreading branches forming a 

 narrow pyramidal or round-topped head, and branchlets slightly villose when they 

 first appear, soon glabrous, and bright reddish brown in their first winter, becoming 

 darker the following vear, and numerous erect thick roots risins" from the surface 

 of the water. Winter-buds acute, dark red-brown, puberulous, and about \' long, 

 the inner scales hoary-tomentose. Bark about V thick, deeply furrowed, very dark 

 reddish brown. 



Distribution. Small Pine-barren ponds in the neighborhood of the coast; North 

 Carolina to Louisiana. 



