SOUR TUPELO. 
25 
employed by fishermen to buoy up their nets : but no part of the tree 
affords a substitute for cork. 
The only merit of this species consists in its agreeable form and beau- 
ful foliage. It endures the temperature of Paris, and does not exact, in 
Europe, as moist a soil as it constantly requires in the United States. 
PLATE CXII. 
A branch with leaves and fruit of the natural size. Fig. 1 , A stone separated 
from the pulp. 
SOUR TUPELO. 
NrssA capitata. N. foins brevissime petiolatis, subcuneato-oblongis, subtus sub - 
candicantibus ; pedunculis fæmineis 1-floris ; fructibus rubris. 
The Sour Tupelo first makes its appearance on the river Ogeechee, near 
the road from Savannah to Sunbury, and in going Southward it is seen 
in every favorable situation. I have been told that it exists in Lower 
Louisiana, which is probable from the analogy in soil and climate between 
the early Southern States and the country watered by the lower part of 
the Mississippi. 
In Georgia this tree is known by the names of Sour Tupelo and Wild 
Lime, the first of which I have preferred, though the last is more common, 
because this vegetable bears no resemblance to the Lime Tree in the form 
of its leaves or of its flowers. 
The leaves are 5 or 6 inches long, oval, rarely denticulated, of a light 
green above and glaucous beneath. The flowers are similar to those of 
the Large Tupelo, but the sexes are borne by separate stocks, and I have 
remarked, as a peculiarity witnessed in no other tree of North America, 
that the male and female trees are easily distinguished by their general 
appearance when the leaves are fallen. The branches of the male are 
more compressed about the trunk, and rise in a direction more nearly 
Vol. III.— 5 
