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Nyssa sylvatica. This Latin name makes good sense. Nyssa was a water sprite, or spirit, in Greek mythology. Bla’gum thrives in swamps and loves wet ground. Sylvatica simply means “of the forest.”
If many common names reflect a tree’s popularity, then this one has had, many admirers. Nyssa Sylvatica is known as black gum, sour gum, wahoo, pepperidge tree and both tupelo and water tupelo. Tupelo comes to us from Native Americans, the Creek Indians to be exact.
The bla’gum has a very straight trunk from which the branches aggressively thrust outward, usually at a 90 degree angle from the trunk. This makes the tree easy to recognize in winter, especially after a close look at the bark, which is thick, rough and dark grayish black scored with many irregular furrows. A number of writers refer to the bark “as looking like alligator skin.”
When I taught the study of trees, dendrology, in junior and senior high school, I was often impatient with students who consistently confused Nyssa leaves with those of the dogwood. No doubt this confusion resulted from some flaw in my manipulation of that complicate process called “teaching” with the supposed result of “learning.” Too many confused students were not wrong.
The basic leaf shape of the two trees is very similar; they are egg-shaped though the books use the term botanists
Erefer, obovate. The leaves of oth trees have entire edges; there are no teeth. The leaf of
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