CORNACER. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 73 
NYSSA. 
FLoweErs polygamo-dicecious; calyx 5-toothed; petals 5, imbricated in estivation ;_ 
stamens 5 to 12; ovary 1 or rarely 2-celled; ovules solitary, suspended. Fruit a fleshy 
drupe. Leaves alternate, petiolate, destitute of stipules, deciduous. 
Nyssa, Linnzus, Gen. 308 (1737), — A. L. de Jussieu, Gen. Ceratostachys, Blume, Bijdr. Fl. Ned. Ind. 644 (1825).— 
75. — Endlicher, Gen. 328. — Meisner, Gen. 328. — Ben- Meisner, Gen. 110. — Endlicher, Gen. 1183. 
tham & Hooker, Gen. i. 952. — Baillon, Hist. Pl. vi. 281. Agathisanthes, Blume, Bijdr. Fl. Ned. Ind. 645 (1825). — 
Tupelo, Adanson, Fam. Pl. ii. 80 (1763). Meisner, G'en. 110. — Endlicher, Gen. 1183. 
Trees, with terete branchlets and scaly buds, the scales of the inner ranks accrescent. Leaves 
alternate, conduplicate in vernation, petiolate, entire or sometimes remotely angulate or toothed, mostly 
crowded at the ends of the branches, deciduous or persistent. Flowers minute, greenish white. The 
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 ebracteolate. 
Calyx disciform or cup-shaped, the limb five or many-toothed. Petals five or indefinite, equal or 
unequal, ovate or linear-oblong, thick, inserted on the margin of the conspicuous pulvinate entire or 
lobed disk, erect. Stamens five or indefinite, exserted ; filaments filiform, inserted on the margin of 
the disk; anthers oblong, introrse, attached at the base, two-celled, the cells opening longitudinally. 
Ovary rudimentary or wanting. Pistillate flowers on axillary peduncles, in two or few-flowered clusters, 
sessile or nearly so in the axil of a conspicuous bract and furnished with one or two smaller lateral 
bractlets, or solitary and surrounded by two to four bractlets. Calyx-tube urceolate or campanulate, 
the limb five-toothed. Petals small, thick, and spreading. Stamens five to ten or wanting ; filaments 
short ; anthers fertile or sterile. Disk less developed than in the sterile flower, depressed in the centre. 
Ovary inferior, one or two-celled; style terete, elongated, simple or rarely forked, recurved, sulcate on 
the inner face, stigmatic toward the apex; ovules solitary, suspended from the interior angle of the apex 
of the cell, anatropous ; raphe ventral ; micropyle superior. Fruit drupaceous, oblong, areolate at the 
apex; sarcocarp thin, oily, acidulous; putamen thick-walled, bony, terete or compressed, slightly or 
conspicuously longitudinally ridged or winged, one or rarely two-celled, usually one-seeded. Seed filling 
the cavity of the stone; testa membranaceous. Embryo straight, in the centre of the copious fleshy 
albumen and nearly as long ; cotyledons foliaceous, much longer than the terete radicle turned toward 
the hilum. 
Nyssa is now confined to the eastern United States, where three species are distinguished, and to 
southern Asia, where the genus is represented by a single species’ distributed from the eastern Hima- 
layas to the island of Java. In the tertiary epoch Nyssa perhaps inhabited the Arctic Circle and then 
spread over Europe” and Alaska,’ and traces of it occur in the Laramie group of western America.‘ 
The American species produce tough wood with intricately contorted and twisted grain, and the 
1 Nyssa arborea. Daphniphyllopsis capitata, Kurz, 1. c. 1875, pt. ii. 201; Forest 
Ceratostachys arborea, Blume, Bijdr. Fl. Ned. Ind. 644 (1825). — Fl. Brit. Burm. i. 240. 
Miquel, Fl. Ned. Ind. i. 839. 2 Heer, Fl. Foss. Arct. ii. 477, t. 48, f. 12°; t. 50, f. 5-7.— 
Agathisanthes Javanica, Blume, !. c. 645 (1825).— Miquel,/.c. Zittel, Handb. Paleontolog. ii. 611. 
Nyssa sessiliflora, Bentham & Hooker, Gen. i. 952 (1867). — 8 Lesquereux, Rep. U. S. Geolog. Surv. viii. 261 (Contrib. Foss. 
Hooker f. Fl. Brit. Ind. ii. 747. Gamble, Man. Indian Timbers, Fl. Western Territories). 
211. 4L. F. Ward, 6th Ann. Rep. U. S. Geolog. Surv. 1884-85, 553, 
Ilex daphnephylloides, Kurz, Jour. Asiatic Soc. 1870, pt. ii. 72. t. 47, £. 7 (Syn. Fl. Laramie Group). 
