=Remarks.=--Wood and uses similar to that of the preceding species. In
Indiana the species are not commercially separated.
A satisfactory division of the species of _Tilia_ of the United States
has long been a puzzle. C. S. Sargent[65] has recently published his
studies of the species and credits Indiana with two species and one
variety. His range of _Tilia neglecta_ might include a part of Indiana,
and it may be that the pubescent forms of _Tilia glabra_ in our area
should be referred to that species. Specimens No. 28043 and 28047 in the
writer's herbarium collected from trees on the high bluff of Graham
Creek in Jennings County, Sargent refers to =Tilia heterophylla= variety
=Michauxii= Sargent. While Sargent's key to _Tilia_ quite distinctly
separates the species and varieties, yet when specimens are collected
from an area where the species overlap and seem to intergrade, the task
of referring a specimen to the proper species or variety is not an easy
one. In fact the writer acknowledges his inability to satisfactorily
classify our forms of _Tilia_, and the present arrangement should be
accepted as provisional.
CORNÀCEAE. The Dogwood Family.
Trees or shrubs; leaves simple, alternate, opposite or whorled; fruit
mostly a drupe, 1 or 2 seeded.
Leaves alternate; flowers of two kinds, the staminate in
heads, 5-parted; stigmas lateral. 1 Nyssa.
Leaves opposite; flowers perfect, 4-parted; stigmas
terminal. 2 Cornus.
=1. NYSSA.= The Tupelos.
=Nyssa sylvática= Marshall. Gum. Black Gum. Sour Gum. Yellow Gum.
Pepperidge. Plate 120. Medium to large sized trees; bark on old trees
deeply and irregularly furrowed, the ridges broken up into small
lengths; twigs at first pubescent, becoming glabrous; leaves
oval-obovate or oblong, blades 5-12 cm. long on petioles 0.5-2 cm. long,
rather abruptly acuminate at apex, narrowed at the base, sometimes
rounded, margins entire, petioles and both surfaces pubescent when they
unfold, becoming glabrous above and glabrous or nearly so beneath at
maturity; flowers appear in May or June, the staminate in clusters,
numerous, small greenish-white, the pistillate 2-8 or solitary; fruit
ripens in autumn, a fleshy drupe, 1-3 of a cluster ripening on a pedicel
2-6 cm. long, ovoid, usually 10-12 mm. long, blue-black, sour and
astringent; stone generally cylindric and tapering at each end and with
10-12 indistinct ribs.
[Illustration: Plate 120.