NYSSACE.E 781 



maturity thick and firm, dark green and lustrous above, pale and often villose below, prin- 

 cipally along the broad midrib and on the primary veins, 2'-o' long and -|'-3' wide; turning 

 early in autumn bright scarlet on the upper surface only; petioles slender or stout, terete or 

 wing-margined, ciliate, i'-l^' in length, and often bright red. Flowers appearing in early 

 spring when the leaves are about one third grown on slender pubescent or tomentose pedun- 

 cles |'-1|' long, staminate in many-flowered dense or lax compound heads, pistillate in 

 2 to several-flowered clusters, sessile in the axils of conspicuous often foliaceous bracts, 

 and furnished with 2 smaller acute hairy bractlets; calyx of the staminate flower disciform; 

 petals thick, ovate-oblong, acute, rounded at apex, erect or slightly spreading, early decidu- 

 ous; stamens exserted in the staminate flower, shorter than the petals in the pistillate 

 flower; stigma stout, exserted, reflexed above the middle, in the staminate flower. 

 Fruit ripening in October, 1-3 from each flower-cluster, ovoid, '-' long, dark blue, W 7 ith 

 thin acrid flesh; stone light brown, ovoid, rounded at base, pointed at apex, terete or more 

 or less flattened, and 10-12-ribbed, with narrow indistinct pale ribs rounded on the back. 



A tree, with thick hard roots and few rootlets, often surrounded by root-sprouts, occa- 

 sionally 100 or rarely 125 high, with a trunk sometimes 5 in diameter, numerous slender 

 pendulous tough flexible branches forming a head sometimes short, cylindric and flat-topped, 

 sometimes low and broad, or on trees crowded in the forest narrow, pyramidal or conic, 

 and sometimes inversely conic and broad and flat at the top, and branchlets when they 

 first appear light green to orange color, and in their first winter nearly glabrous or pale or 

 rufous-pubescent, light red-brown marked by minute scattered pale lenticels and by small 

 lunate leaf-scars displaying the ends of 3 conspicuous groups of fibro-vascular bundles, 

 later becoming darker and developing short stout spur-like lateral branchlets; generally in 

 the northern and extreme southern states much smaller, and rarely more than 50-60 tall. 

 Winter-buds obtuse, \' long, with ovate acute apiculate dark red puberulous imbricated 

 scales, those of the inner ranks accrescent, bright-colored at maturity, and marking the 

 base of the branchlet with obscure ring-like scars. Bark of the trunk f'-H' thick, light 

 brown often tinged with red, and deeply fissured, the surface of the ridges covered with 

 small irregularly shaped scales. Wood heavy, soft, strong, very tough, not durable, light 

 yellow or nearly white, with thick lighter colored sapwood of 80-100 layers of annual 

 grow r th; used for the hubs of wheels, rollers in glass factories, ox-yokes, wharf -piles, and 

 sometimes for the soles of shoes. 



Distribution. Borders of swamps in wet imperfectly drained soil, and often especially 

 southward on high wooded mountain slopes; valley of the Kennebec River, Maine, to 

 southern Ontario, central Michigan, southeastern Missouri and eastern Oklahoma, and 

 southward to northern 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, but difficult to trans- 

 plant except when very young. The first tree in the eastern states to assume autumn 

 colors of the leaves. 



2. Nyssa biflora Walt. 



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

 rounded at the narrow apex, cuneate or rounded at the gradually narrowed base, and entire, 

 when they unfold silky-villose above and hoary-tomentose beneath, soon becoming gla- 

 brous, dark yellow-green and lustrous on the upper surface, paler and sometimes glaucous on 

 the lower surface, 2'-4' long and f '-!' wide, with a prominent midrib and numerous slender 

 veins; petioles stout, \'-\' in length. Flowers appearing when the leaves are nearly fully 

 grown; staminate on slender villose pedicels, in many-flowered loose clusters on slender 

 hairy peduncles \'-\\' in length; pistillate in pairs on rather stouter peduncles usually 

 about 1' long; calyx of the staminate flower disciform; petals oblong-ovate, rounded at 

 apex, white, erect or slightly spreading, early deciduous. Fruit solitary or in pairs, on 

 peduncles V-\\' in length, oval or ellipsoid, dark blue, lustrous, about \' long, with 

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



