Nyssa sylvatica Low Stock One growing as Fontanesia fortunei

One growing as Fontanesia fortunei in our Citywide Arboretum here in Aiken

but a member of the buttercup tribe that happens to flower around Lent

gives nitrogen back to the ground it sits in

and rheumatism

the tangle of dead stems can be cut clean to the ground in late winter or early spring with no loss of flower

Nyssa sylvatica Low Stock One growing as Fontanesia fortuneiBlack gum is one of the longest lived hardwoods in eastern North America; individual trees have been aged past six hundred and fifty years, standing quietly in swamp margins and rocky uplands while everything human around them came and went. The names alone are a small history lesson. Nyssa was a water nymph of Greek myth, sylvatica means of the woods, so the botanical name reads as water nymph of the forest; tupelo comes from the Creek ito and