Anybody up for a game of "guess-that-tree"?

[pennsywoodburnr]

I've got a tree here I can't I.D. There's a cluster of them growing near the shed and it seems every year they drop these little blueberry like seeds that rot away and expose a hard seed that almost look black and white with stripes on them. I tried looking them up in my tree book, but didn't get anywhere with that. So I thought I'd run it by the firewood pro's on here. Here's a couple pics:
The leaves have alternating clusters going up the branch.





This is a picture of the immature bark.
And the picture below is from a more mature tree. Same leaves and everything, just older.

 

[stumpy75]

Looks like a black gum to me. Nyssa sylvatica

 

[1project2many]

http://www.carolinanature.com/trees/nysy.html

Grows slowly. Likes swamps and acidic soil. Likely to stick around for a few years...
http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...86tJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=fg4NAAAAIBAJ&pg=3371,110787

 

[pennsywoodburnr]

I think both of you guys nailed it on the classification. Now the big question........how does it burn??

 

[stumpy75]

If you can get it split, it's about the middle of the hardwods. What little I have tried to hand split, I cussed a lot at it, and finally got it done with a hydraulic splitter. Don't see a lot of it in my area(which is ok with me!).

BTY: It's also called Tupelo or even Black Tupelo in some areas.

 

[zogger]

If you can get it split, it's about the middle of the hardwods. What little I have tried to hand split, I cussed a lot at it, and finally got it done with a hydraulic splitter. Don't see a lot of it in my area(which is ok with me!).

BTY: It's also called Tupelo or even Black Tupelo in some areas.

I know, think anyway, I have seen one around here, but I can't walk directly to it. The soil is limey here, maybe that is why there aren't many.

 

[Zale]

+1 on nyssa. They have great fall color, bright red.

 

[pennsywoodburnr]

+1 on nyssa. They have great fall color, bright red.

They do have an unusually bright red color in the fall. Some of it is changing over already.