Black gum (Nyssa sylvatica) in late September, a cluster of blue-black fruit on red stalks among glossy leaves spotted purple

Photo: Blue Whale Trees

Black Gum (Tupelo)

Scientific name: Nyssa sylvatica

Also called black tupelo, sour gum, pepperidge.

Blazing scarlet fall color, superb bee forage, and one of the longest-lived hardwoods in the East.

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Saplings ship bare-root, usually 12 to 18 inches tall, in the dormant season, and their height and age are stated here with the price, once available.

We grow it as saplings and seed. One email when it is listed with prices, and nothing else. Or ask, and we reply with what is ready now. Live plants ship February to May.

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Fall colorHoney treeWildlife valueTolerates wet soilStreet treeErosion controlSalt tolerant

Type: Large tree
Mature height: 40–70 ft
USDA zones: 4–9
Growth rate: Slow
Flowers: May to June
Fruit: Berries, September to October
First crop: 2 years from sprouts
Mature spread: 35 ft
Sun: Full, Part
Soil moisture: Dry, Average, Wet
Grows wild in: Floodplain forests, dry uplands, swamps and wet flats, old fields and edges
Native range: 31 states and the District of Columbia, north to Maine, south to Florida and west to Texas
List all 32
Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia
Also recorded, not native, in Kansas. See what is native in your state

Hardiness zones Find your zone by ZIP code

Black gum turns color earlier and more brilliantly than almost any other native tree, and its small spring flowers feed bees for weeks. Cross-dated trees in New England have exceeded 600 years. Slow to start, worth the wait. As a street tree it stands the wet, compacted clay found in many cities, even in a sidewalk tree pit. Perfect as the one shade tree on a lawn, chosen for fall color over fast growth.

Size, growth and what to expect

Patience is the first thing to expect from black gum. A young tree stands 12 to 15 feet after about ten years, and our growth estimator models it at about a foot a year in youth. Forest trees reach 40 to 70 feet with a trunk 1 to 2 feet through and a crown 20 to 35 feet wide. Trees can live more than 600 years, and one in New Hampshire was dated to 679. Most begin to decline at 80 to 150 years.

No bearing age is on record for black gum itself; a sprouting swamp tupelo bears in two years. Heavy seed comes once the trunk is about 8 inches through, and the tupelos fruit abundantly every year. Small greenish flowers open in May and June and feed bees well. The blue-black fruit, three eighths to half an inch long and quite sour, ripens in September and October. Migrating thrushes, wild turkeys, black bears and foxes eat it.

It grows wild from Maine and southern Ontario west to Michigan and Missouri and south to eastern Texas and Florida, in wet bottoms and on dry rocky slopes alike. The long taproot rules out moving an older tree.

How to grow Black Gum

Black gum takes full sun or part shade on almost any ground: wet bottomland, dry ridges, heavy clay. It prefers acid soil and turns yellow on limestone. At full size it should stand 20 feet from a house and clear of overhead wires. Set trees 20 feet apart.

Tupelo grows a taproot and resents being moved, so plant it small and in spring. Bare-root saplings go into a hole twice the width of the roots and deep enough for the taproot, root flare at grade, backfilled with the same soil. Mulch a wide ring three inches deep, kept off the trunk. Sow seed in fall an inch deep under hardware cloth; it germinates the next spring.

Black gum is slow to establish, so water deeply once a week through the first summer and during dry spells for two more. Deer browse the tips, so use a tube or cage for three or four years. There is no need to prune it.

Most trees are male or female, so only some seedlings will fruit. Color begins in early September, well before the maples.

Heights and zones are typical ranges for the species in cultivation; local conditions and seed source shift them.

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