710 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



3. Nyssa Ogeche, Marsh. Ogeechee Lime. Sour Tupelo. 



Leaves oblong, oval or obovate, acute, rounded or rarely obtuse and apiculate 

 at the apex, gradually or abruptly wedge-shaped or soaietimes rounded at the base, 



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and entire, when they unfold covered on the lower surface with thick hoary tomentum 

 and on the upper surface with short scattered pale hairs, and at maturity thick and 

 firm, dark green, lustrous and slightly pilose above, pale below, 4'-6' long, 2'-2|' 

 wide, with stout midribs, 9 or 10 pairs of primary veins covered on the lower side 

 with rufous pubescence or often nearly glabrous, and obscure reticulate veinlets; their 

 petioles stout, grooved, ^'-1' long. Flovrers greenish yellow, appearing in March 

 and April; staminate minute, in capitate clusters on slender hairy peduncles y long, 

 bibracteolate near the middle, and developed from the axils of the inner scales of the 

 terminal bud, covered with long pale hairs on the outer surface of the short obscurely 

 5-toothed calyx and on the oblong petals rounded at the apex; filaments longer than 

 the petals; anthers oval and conspicuously tuberculate-roughened; pistillate solitary, 

 Y^g' long, on short stout woolly peduncles from the axils of bud-scales, and furnished 

 at the apex with 2 acute hairy bractlets; calyx coated, like the minute rounded 

 spreading petals, with hoary tomentum; stamens included, with short filaments, and 

 small mostly fertile anthers; style stout, exserted, reflexed from near the base. Fruit 

 bright or dull red, on slender tomentose stems enlarged at the apex and ^'-f' long, 

 ripening in July and August, and sometimes persistent on the branches until after 

 the falling of the leaves, oblong or obovate, V-iy in length, tipped with the thick- 

 ened and pointed remnants of the style; flesh thick, juicy, very acid; stone oblong, 

 compressed, narrowed at the ends, rounded at the base, acute at the apex, with walls 

 produced into 10 or 12 broad thin papery white wings, about 1' long, and 1 or 

 rarely 2-seeded. 



A tree, rarely 60-70 high, with 1 or several stems occasionally 2 in diameter, 

 spreading branches forming a narrow round-topped head, and slender branchlets 

 coated when they first appear with rufous tomentum, light reddish brown or green 

 tinged with red and puberulous during their first summer, turning gray or reddish 

 brown in their first winter, and marked by large lunate or nearly triangular leaf- 

 scars displaying the ends of 3 groups of fibro-vascular bundles; often a shrub, with 



