Plant: Green Gable - Black Gum Tree
Black Gum Tree · Nyssa sylvatica 'Green Gable'
Was $150.00
Size: 15 gal
Light
Bloom
Mature size
More about this plant
A dense pyramidal selection of the native blackgum reaching about 40 to 50 feet, with glossy dark green leathery leaves 3 to 6 inches long that turn an intense red with orange, yellow and purple tones in fall. Insignificant greenish white flowers in May and June are a prized nectar source for honey bees, and half inch bluish black drupes on female trees feed thrushes and other songbirds, wild turkeys, foxes and raccoons from August through October. It grows in full sun in acid to neutral clay, loam or sand, accepts moist or occasionally flooded ground as well as drier sites, and serves as a shade tree, specimen or street tree. Green Gable is noted for its dense habit and resistance to leaf spot.
- Full Sun
- Grows to 50 ft tall and 35 ft wide
- Blooms in spring
- Hardy in USDA zones 4a-9b
- Deciduous foliage
- Native plant
Plant description
A dense pyramidal selection of the native blackgum reaching about 40 to 50 feet, with glossy dark green leathery leaves 3 to 6 inches long that turn an intense red with orange, yellow and purple tones in fall. Insignificant greenish white flowers in May and June are a prized nectar source for honey bees, and half inch bluish black drupes on female trees feed thrushes and other songbirds, wild turkeys, foxes and raccoons from August through October. It grows in full sun in acid to neutral clay, loam or sand, accepts moist or occasionally flooded ground as well as drier sites, and serves as a shade tree, specimen or street tree. Green Gable is noted for its dense habit and resistance to leaf spot.
- Flowers
- Small greenish white flowers in umbels in May and June, insignificant but a prized nectar source for honey bees.
- Foliage
- Simple alternate leaves 3 to 6 inches long, elliptical to obovate, dark green, glossy and leathery, turning intense red with hues of orange, yellow and purple in fall.
- Fruit
- Half inch drupes on female trees ripening to bluish black, round to oval, with a thin sharply acid pulp that can be used in preserves.
- Bark & stems
- Gray brown to nearly black bark, deeply furrowed into rectangular ridges, with slender limbs held at roughly 90 degree angles.
- Native range
- Southern Ontario to the Central and Eastern United States, and Mexico
