Nyssa Sil 
the borders of swamps ; but in the south grows also on high wooded mountain slopes. 
It is very variable in form, sometimes branching close to the ground; but oftener 
has a stout straight trunk, covered with light brown deeply furrowed bark, which is 
often curiously divided into hexagonal scales. Plate 1448 shows the trunk of a tree 
in America. The upper branches are twiggy and usually crooked. The glossy 
green leaves are rarely disfigured by fungi or insects, and turn to deep red in 
autumn. An excellent illustration of a group of trees growing near a pond in 
Massachusetts is given in Garden and Forest, ii. 491, which resemble in habit the 
Siberian or Japanese larch; and this is the form which the trees often assume in 
low swampy ground in New England. Another figure in the same journal, vii. 275, 
fig. 46, shows the habit of a tree growing in drier ground in Pennsylvania. 
CULTIVATION 
Nyssa sylvatica was in cultivation at Whitton, near Hounslow, in 1750. It is, 
when well grown, a very distinct and beautiful tree, the brilliant scarlet assumed by 
its leaves in autumn rendering it a very desirable ornament for the park or pleasure 
ground. 
Sargent says that one reason why this tree is not more generally planted is that 
its long roots with few rootlets make it difficult to transplant, and that it must be 
either planted out when quite young or frequently transplanted in the nursery. 
Those which I have raised from seed grew slowly the first year, but seemed to 
ripen their young wood better than many American trees. When pricked out singly 
into pots in the following spring they all died. 
We have seen very few specimens in this country, the only one of great size 
being the tree’ at Strathfieldsaye, which measured in 1897 74 feet high by 5 feet 
5 inches in girth. It grows on rather heavy soil. This tree was reported by 
Loudon to be about 30 feet high in 1838, and is probably over roo years old (Plate 
145). It produced seed in 1906 which appeared to be mature. 
There is a tree at Munden, near Watford, the seat of the Hon. A. Holland 
Hibbert, which has a short bole of 44 feet long with a girth of 3 feet 3 inches, 
dividing into two stems, the branches of which are very spreading, forming a crown 
of foliage 38 feet in diameter ; the total height is only 20 feet. Mr. Daniel Hill of 
Watford, who kindly sent these measurements, says that the fork has been leaded 
over ; and it is possible that the tree lost its leader early from some accident, and in 
consequence subsequently assumed its present peculiar habit. 
At White Knights, near Reading, there was a large tree of this species which 
was cut down some years ago; and there are now many suckers arising from the 
roots.2. There is another tree at Bicton about 35 feet high by 3} feet, which in 
August 1906 had full-sized fruit upon it which seemed likely to ripen. 
1 The girth of this tree given in Gard. Chron. xxvi. 162 (1899), is evidently erroneous, 14 feet 104 inches being 
a misprint for 4 feet 10$ inches. 
2 Schenck, in Bzltmore Lectures on Sylviculture, 56 (1905), says that in the forest old trees are often surrounded by an 
abundance of seedlings ; but on abandoned fields it seems to come up from sprouts and not from seeds, 
