Nyssaceae - Sour Gum Family

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Nyssa sylvatica (Black Tupelo/Black Gum/Sour Gum)

This tree grows from 50 to 100 feet tall, and is 2 to 3 feet in diameter.  This tree has a dense, conical, or sometimes flat-topped crown, with many slender, nearly horizontal branches and glossy foliage.  The leaves are 3 to 6 inches long, alternate, simple, not toothed, slightly thickened, often crowded on short twigs, lustrous, dark green, pale, and often hairy beneath.  The bark is gray or dark brown, thick, deeply furrowed into rectangular or irregular ridges.  The flowers are greenish at the end of long stalks at the base of new leaves in the early spring.  Male and female flowers are usually on separate trees.  The fruit is 3/8" to 1/2" long, berrylike, elliptical, blue-black with bitter or sour pulp, that mature in autumn.  The fall color is yellow, orange, red, to purple.

The fruit is consumed by many birds and mammals.

This tree is found in moist soils of valleys and uplands in hardwood and pine forests.

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