It’s Tupelo, Honey!

Black Gum in October AMcC

Like Nancy Drew, I’m closing in on The Mystery of the Black Gums. Besides the puzzle of identification I talked about in my last post, what’s up with the mysterious name and many aliases? This tree of moist soil has a genus name “Nyssa,” which according to Kurz refers to the home of the mythical water sprites of ancient Greece--although their home is located in the country we now call Turkey. “Sylvatica” is from the Latin word for forest.

One of its many common names is Black Tupelo. The black in black gum and tupelo I believe refers to the dark bark. According to HortNet, “Tupelo” stems from a Muscogee word meaning “swamp tree”--not very different from the scientific names. The “gum” part of the name is unexplained. I could find no reference to resin or gum obtained from this tree, though there must be some since it’s known as Black Gum, Sour Gum, Bee Gum, and Upland Yellow Gum in different parts of its range. In Martha’s Vineyard, Massachussets, says Wikipedia, it’s called Beetlebung. I know you’re thinking, “Wasn’t Beetlebung the horse that wins the race in Spike Jones’ version of  ‘The William Tell Overture’ ?” I thought so too, but evidently this is a reference to the toughness of the wood; tough enough to use as a mallet to drive in the stopper (bung) of a barrel. Yet another common name is Pepperidge. Except for the famous farm that produces wonderful cookies, I found nothing to explain that why a lowland tree would be growing on a ridge. The abundance of popular names suggests that human culture in all its regional variation has taken note of this tree.

photo by TW Collins

The Sibley Guide to Trees says that Tupelo has “a relatively high fructose content” (Sibley, 359), which is another way of saying, “sweet as Tupelo honey.” So perhaps the song you were thinking of wasn’t done by Spike Jones, it was written and sung by Van Morrison. Tupelo honey is a high-quality variety of honey, as well as the title of Morrison’s 1971 hit. According to the Wise Geek, the best honey is from the swamp-loving white tupelo or water tupelo, Nyssa aquatica, though both Tupelos are famed for their nectar and both are sometimes called Sour Gum. National Wildlife Federation’s site American Beauties recommends Black Gum as a bee tree, call it a “heavy nectar producer.” Thanks TW Collins for licensing your photo with Creative Commons.

Though its range just touches Vermont’s border with Canada, here in the Midwest, St. Louis is the northern limit of Black Gum’s range. Water tupelo’s range is more limited, as you would expect for a tree that requires standing water for at least part of the year. It’s found along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, and along the Mississippi River, though it stops about 150 miles south of St. Louis.

Black Gum for the gums? AMcC

One last mystery was solved in my Black Gum research. A few short decades ago I attended a Girl Scout event that featured a competition for “Most Useful Item Made from Nature.” I met an older scout who told me that her entry was a toothbrush. Fascinated, I asked her to let me see it, but oh no, it was her secret. Then, way at the bottom of Duke University’s article on Black Gum, the answer. Too bad it doesn’t taste like Dentyne.

The Mystery of the Black Gums

My neighbor's mystery tree in early October. AMcC

In the back of a neighbor’s property stand the mystery trees. They certainly must be wild trees. Instead of being installed in the center of the lawn, as human landscapers like to plant, these trees grew in a group along an unmowed property line. Perhaps birds dropped the seeds, along with a bit of fertilizer, while perched on the rusting remains of a fence.

At first I thought of persimmon. The chunky, dark bark seemed right. The leaf seemed right, but where were the fruits? What is with that 45° turn about a third of way down most branches? It looks like each branch has a bent elbow with palms up, saying “I dunno.”  


I suspected Black Gum, but thought of that as a swamp tree. These grew in soil that was average in moisture. I even looked with binoculars, searching for small berries without success. And I had read about Black Gum’s spectacular fall color, something that I had never noticed in these.

The mystery began to unravel when I read Don Kurz’ description of Black Gum’s bark as “alligator hide,” a description I had previously read applied to persimmon. He also mentions that Black Gum is “the first tree to turn color, typically beginning in August, and one of the first to drop its leaves” (Kurz, Trees of Missouri, 218). No wonder I had missed the autumn show! HortNet helped with the mystery of the invisible fruit. They note that only female trees bear fruit, the fruit blends with dark green leaves in summer, and any ripe fruit is quickly gobbled up by birds in late summer or early fall.

The Hebrew Moth, photo by Jenn Forman Orth

Many sources describe spectacular red fall color. This is variable. Most trees in my neighborhood--now that I recognize them--have yellow leaves in fall. I saw one young tree however that had the most beautiful red leaves, and these persisted until late October.

Most often, Black Gum is a lowland tree, but not a tree of the swamps as I had thought. It's characteristic elbow branches are interesting in winter and a great help in identifying it.

Besides being a great nectar-producer in spring and fruiting tree for fall migrating birds, Black Gum is the host plant for an interesting underwing moth, called the Hebrew moth,  Polygrammate hebraeicum. Heitzman, in Butterflies and Moths of Missouri mentions that the  larvae “conceal themselves by pressing into crevices in the bark of the host plant” (263). My moth photo comes from Flickr friend Jenn Forman Orth. Check her original in full size along with a lively discussion about the origin of its name.

The "alligator-hide" bark of the Black Gum AMcC

Bark of a young Flowering Dogwood forms squares AMcC

Persimmon tree bark forms rectangles AMcC

David Sibley, in The Sibley Guide to Trees, compares the bark of three similar trees. The related Flowering Dogwood has scaly bark in square blocks, the unrelated Persimmon’s bark is rectangular blocks, while Black Gum’s bark on mature trees is “deeply furrowed.” I see this not only on the trunk but also on large limbs. Perfect for hiding a caterpillar! 


More mysteries to come in my next post…