Nyssa sylvatica, commonly known as tupelo, black tupelo, black gum or sour gum, is a medium-sized deciduous tree native to eastern North America from the coastal Northeastern United States and southern Ontario south to central Florida and eastern Texas, as well as Mexico.
Names Nyssa sylvatica's genus name, Nyssa, refers to a Greek water nymph; the species epithet sylvatica refers to its woodland habitat. The species' common name, tupelo, is of Native American origin, coming from the Creek words ito "tree" and opilwa "swamp"; it was in use by the mid-18th century. While these trees are often known as simply "tupelo", the fuller name, black tupelo, helps distinguish it from the other species of the tupelo genus Nyssa, some of which have overlapping ranges, such as water tupelo (N. aquatica) and swamp tupelo (N. biflora). The name "tupelo" is used primarily in the American South; northward and in Appalachia, the tree is more commonly called the black gum or the sour gum, although no part of the plant is particularly gummy. Both of these names contrast it with a different tree species with a broadly overlapping range, the sweet gum (Liquidambar styraciflua), which does produce an aromatic resin. Another common name used occasionally in the Northeast is pepperidge. In Appalachia, the frequent variant is Nyssa sylvatica var. caroliniana, which is sometimes called the Yellow Gum. Its leaflets are thinner and less glossy, "with rather long tips, the under surface persistently somewhat downy and covered with minute warty excrescences easily seen under an ordinary hand lens" "Yellow Gum is not a swamp tree, like Black Gum, but an inhabitant of dry land, hills, and the coves of the southern Appalachians which it ascends to 3,500 ft (1,100 m). On Martha's Vineyard, in Massachusetts, this species is called "beetlebung", perhaps for its use in making the mallet known as a beetle, used for hammering bungs (stoppers) into barrels.
Description
Nyssa sylvatica grows to 20–25 meters (66–82 ft) tall, rarely to 35 meters (115 ft), with a trunk diameter of 50–100 centimeters (20–39 in), rarely up to 170 cm (67 in). These trees typically have a straight trunk with the branches extending outward at right angles. The bark is dark gray and flaky when young, but it becomes furrowed with age, resembling alligator hide on very old stems. The twigs of this tree are reddish-brown, usually hidden by a greyish skin. The pith is chambered with greenish partitions. The leaves vary in size and shape. They can be oval, elliptical, or obovate, and 5–12 cm (2–4.5 in) long. They have lustrous upper surfaces, with entire, often wavy margins. The foliage turns purple in autumn, eventually becoming an intense bright scarlet. Deer are extremely fond of the leaves on seedlings and saplings, to the point where large populations of them can make establishment of the tree almost impossible. For comparison, mature trees are largely left alone. The flowers are very small, in greenish-white in clusters at the top of a long stalk and a rich source of nectar for bees. They are often dioecious so a male and female tree in proximity is required to set seed, however, many trees are also polygamo-dioecious, which means they have both male and female flowers on the same tree. The fruit is a black-blue, ovoid stone fruit, about 10 mm long with a thin, oily, bitter-to-sour tasting flesh and very popular with small bird species. There are from one to three fruits together on a long slender stalk. They are a valuable energy food for birds, especially the American robin. Nyssa sylvatica forms a large deep taproot when young that makes transplanting difficult. Because of this, it is fairly uncommon in cultivation and the nursery trade. Additional characteristics include:
Bark: Light reddish brown, deeply furrowed and scaly. Branchlets at first pale green to orange, sometimes smooth, often downy, later dark brown. Wood: Pale yellow, sapwood white; heavy, strong, very tough, hard to split, not durable in contact with the soil. Used for turnery. Sp. gr., 0.6353; weight of cu. ft., 39.59. Winter buds: Dark red, obtuse, one-fourth of an inch long. Inner scales enlarge with the growing shoot, becoming red before they fall. Leaves: Alternate, often crowded at the end of the lateral branches, simple, linear, oblong to oval, two to five inches (127 mm) long, one-half to three inches (76 mm) broad, wedge-shaped or rounded at base, entire, with margin slightly thickened, acute or acuminate. They come out of the bud conduplicate, coated beneath with rusty tomentum, when full grown are thick, dark green, very shining above, pale and often hairy beneath. Feather-veined, midrib and primary veins prominent beneath. In autumn they turn bright scarlet, or yellow and scarlet. Petioles one-quarter to one-half an inch long, slender or stout, terete or margined, often red. Flowers: May, June, when leaves are half grown. Polygamodiœcious, yellowish green, borne on slender downy peduncles. Staminate in many-flowered heads; pistillate in two to several flowered clusters. Calyx: Cup-shaped, five-toothed. Corolla: Petals five, imbricate in bud, yellow green, ovate, thick, slightly spreading, inserted on the margin of the conspicuous disk. Stamens: Five to twelve. In staminate flowers exserted, in pistillate short, often wanting. Pistil: Ovary inferior, one to two-celled; style stout, exserted, reflexed above the middle. Entirely wanting in sterile flower. Ovules, one in each cell. Fruit: Fleshy drupe, one to three from each flower cluster. Ovoid, two-thirds of an inch long, dark blue, acid. Stone more or less ridged. October.
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