Tupelo, a name given by some tribes of Indians to species of nyssa, especially N. multiflora; this is also called sour gum and black gum, and is described, together with the characters of the genus, under the latter title. There is much confusion among the species, as they are very variable; there are at least four in the United States and one or two in the Himalaya mountains and other eastern localities. The one above referred to is the most common. The large or one-flowered tupelo (N, uniflora) is found from Virginia and Kentucky southward, often growing in the water; the bark is very corky, and the wood so light that sections of the branches and roots are used as floats for seines; its large leaves, 4 to 12 in. long, are often heart-shaped at base; the fertile flowers are solitary; the blue fruit an inch or more long. A more southern species is the water tupelo (N. aquatica), which grows in the pine-barren swamps of North Carolina, and extends southward and westward; it occurs both as a mere shrub and as a large tree, with smaller leaves and fruit than those of the common N. multiflora, or black gum.

A fourth species is known as the Ogeechee lime (N. capitata), a small tree found near the coast in Georgia and Florida; its sterile flowers are capitate, or in a head, and the solitary fertile ones are succeeded by a red fruit, an inch or more long, quite acid, but eatable, and in request for making preserves.