CORNACEA. 
80 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 
included, consist of short filaments and small mostly fertile anthers; the style is stout, exserted, and 
reflexed from near the base. The fruit, which ripens in July and August, sometimes hangs on the 
branches until after the falling of the leaves;! it is bright or dull red, oblong or obovate, glabrous, an 
inch to an inch and a half long, tipped with the thickened and pointed remnants of the style which 
remain attached to the stone, and is borne on a slender stem clothed with tomentum, enlarged at the 
apex, and one half or two thirds of an inch in length; the flesh is thick, juicy, and very acid; the 
stone is oblong, compressed, with thick hard walls produced into ten or twelve broad thin papery white 
wings, and is an inch or more in length and one or rarely two-seeded. The seed, which is compressed 
and narrowed at both ends, has a thin papery pale coat and thick albumen. 
Nyssa Ogeche, which is a rare and local tree, grows in deep often inundated river-swamps from 
the borders of South Carolina in the neighborhood of the coast, through the Ogeechee valley in 
Georgia to Clay County in northern Florida, and in Washington County in western Florida, where it 
seems to attain its largest size.’ 
The wood of Nyssa Ogeche is light, soft, tough, although not strong, coarse-grained, and difficult 
to split. It contains many thin medullary rays and numerous regularly distributed open ducts, and is 
white, with thin hardly distinguishable sapwood composed of about ten layers of annual growth. The 
specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.4613, a cubic foot weighing 28.75 pounds. 
A preserve with an agreeable subacid flavor, known as Ogeechee limes, is sometimes made from 
the fruit of this tree in Georgia and South Carolina. 
The earliest mention of the Ogeechee Lime occurs in Bernard Romans’ account of Florida, 
published in 1775;* it is said by Aiton* to have been introduced into England in 1806 by John 
Lyon,’ but probably it does not now exist in cultivation outside the region it naturally mhabits, where 
it is occasionally found in gardens. 
1 “J saw large, tall trees of the Nyssa coccinea, si. Ogeeche, 
growing on the banks of the river. 
the shore. 
ance than this, in the autumn, when the fruit is ripe, and the tree 
divested of its leaves ; for then they look as red as scarlet, with 
their fruit, which is of that colour also. It is of the shape, but 
larger than the olive, containing an agreeable acid juice.” (W. Bar- 
tram, Travels, 17.) 
2 Nyssa Ogeche has been said to grow also in southern Arkansas 
(Nuttall, Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. v. 167 ; Travels, 71. — Lesquereux, 
Owen 2d Rep. Geolog. Surv. Arkansas, 364), where several trees 
once considered peculiar to the south Atlantic states are now known 
to occur, but I have seen no specimens gathered west of Florida. 
(See Coulter & Evans, Bot. Gazette, xv. 93.) 
3 Nat. Hist. Florida, 22. 
4 Hort. Kew. ed. 2, v. 480. — Loudon, Arb. Brit. iii. 1318, f. 1199. 
5 Little is known of the early history of John Lyon, who is iden- 
They grow in the water, near 
There is no tree that exhibits a more desirable appear- 
tified with American plants through his introduction of a number 
of important species into English gardens. He is said to have been 
a natural son of William Lyon of Gillogie in Forfarshire, Scotland, 
who was afterwards a merchant in London. Lyon probably came 
to America toward the end of the last century, as in 1802 he was 
placed in charge of the famous gardens at Woodlawn, near Phila- 
delphia, the property of William Hamilton. He retained this posi- 
tion until 1805, and in the following year returned to England with 
a large collection of living plants and seeds, which were sold at 
auction near London. He probably soon returned to America, and, 
having devoted several years to exploring the Carolinas, Georgia, 
and Florida, returned in 1812 to England with another collection 
of plants. He again returned to America, where he died before 
1818 at Asheville, North Carolina, where he was buried. 
A number of species of Andromeda were united by Thomas 
Nuttall into the genus Lyonia, which commemorates “the name of 
the late Mr. John Lyon, an indefatigable collector of North Ameri- 
can plants who fell victim to a dangerous epidemic amidst those 
savage and romantic mountains which had so often been the theatre 
of his labors” (Gen. i. 266). 
