782 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



Fig 



A tree, rarely more than 30 high, with a slender trunk gradually tapering upward from 

 a swollen and much enlarged base, small spreading branches forming a narrow pyramidal 

 or round-topped head, branchlets slightly villose when they first appear, soon glabrous, 

 bright reddish brown in their first winter, becoming darker the following year, and nu- 

 merous erect thick roots rising above the surface of the water. Winter-buds acute, dark 

 red-brown, puberulous, and about |' long, the inner scales hoary-tomentose. Bark about 

 1' thick, deeply furrowed, gray to very dark reddish brown. 



Distribution. Small Pine-barren ponds of the coastal plain from North Carolina to 

 central and eastern Florida, southern Alabama and Mississippi, and western Louisiana 

 (near Lake Charles, Calcasieu Parish). 



3. Nyssa ogeche Marsh. Ogeechee Lime. Sour Tupelo. 



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

 gradually or abruptly cuneate or sometimes rounded at base, and entire, covered on the 

 lower surface when they unfold 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 and 2'-2^' wide, with a stout midrib, 9 or 10 

 pairs of primary veins covered on the low r er side with rufous pubescence or often nearly 

 glabrous, and obscure reticulate veinlets; petioles stout, grooved, ^'-1' in length. Flowers 

 appearing in March and April; staminate in capitate clusters on slender hairy peduncles 

 %' 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 cup-shaped calyx and on the oblong petals rounded at apex; filaments longer 

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

 ^' long, on short stout woolly peduncles from the axils of bud-scales, and furnished at 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 apex and \'-\' long, ripening in July and August, and some- 

 times persistent on the branches until after the falling of the leaves, oblong or obovoid, 

 I'-l^r' in length, tipped with the thickened and pointed remnants of the style; flesh thick, 

 juicy, very acid; stone oblong, compressed, 'narrowed at the ends, rounded at base, acute 

 at 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 



