20 
BLACK GUM. 
be assumed as its northern boundary, though it is common in the woods on 
the road from Philadelphia to Baltimore. In all the more Southern States, 
both east and west of the Alleghany Mountains, it is more or less multiplied 
as the soil is more or less favorable to its growth. It is designated by the 
names of Black Gum, Yellow Gum and Sour Gum, neither of which is 
founded upon any of its characteristic properties ; but as they have become 
sanctioned by use, however ill-chosen, I have adopted the first, which is 
the most common. 
The vegetation of this tree exhibits a remarkable singularity : in Mary- 
land, Virginia and the Western States, where it grows on high and level 
grounds with the Oaks and the Walnuts, it is distinguished by no peculiar- 
ity of form ; in the lower part of the Carolinas and of Georgia, where it is 
found only in wet places with the Small Magnolia or White Bay, the Bed 
Bay, the Loblolly Bay and the Water Oak, it has a pyramidal base re- 
sembling a sugar-loaf. A trunk 18 or 20 feet high and T or 8 inches in 
diameter at the surface, is only 2 or 3 inches thick a foot from the ground ; 
these proportions, however, vary in different individuals. 
The Black Gum is much superior in size to the Tupelo, being frequently 
60 or 70 feet high and 18 or 20 inches in diameter. I have observed that 
on elevated and fertile lands in the upper part of Virginia, in Kentucky 
and Tennessee it is larger than in marshy grounds in the maritime parts of 
the Southern States. 
The leaves of this species are 5 or 6 inches long, alternate, entire, of an 
elongated oval form, and borne by short and downy petioles. The flowers 
are small, not conspicuous and collected in bunches. The fruit is of a deep 
blue color and of a lengthened oval shape, and contains a slightly convex 
stone, longitudinally striated on both sides. 
The bark of the trunk is whitish and similar to that of the young White 
Oak. The wood is fine-grained but tender, and its fibres are interwoven 
and collected in bundles ; an arrangement characteristic of the genus. The 
alburnum of stocks growing upon dry and elevated lands' is yellow ; this 
complexion is considered by wheel-' wrights as a proof of the superior quality 
of the wood, and has, probably, given rise to the name of Yellow Gum, 
which is sometimes given to this species. Throughout the greater part of 
Virginia, the Black Gum is employed for the nayes of coach and wagon 
wheels ; at Biehmond, Baltimore, Philadelphia, etc., it is. preferred for 
hatters’ blocks, as being less liable to split ; and in the Southern States it 
is used in the rice-mills for the cylinder which receives the cogs, by whose 
revolution the pestles are lifted and dropped upon the rice to separate it 
from the husk. The teeth are driven into mortices formed in the wood, 
and are strongly compressed by the reaction of its interwoven fibres. For 
its difficulty in splitting, the Black Gum is chosen by ship-wrights for the 
cap , or the piece which receives the topmast. 
