Featured Wood: Nyssa sylvatica Marshall (Nyssaceae) / Blackgum, Sour Gum

Radial Section

Tangential Section

Cross Section

Comments: The wood of Nyssa sylvatica "is a favored wood for wildfowl carvings. It generally is able to take finer details, holds paint better, and does not fuzz up during power carving like Basswood" - The Wood Handbook. Fossil Nyssa wood occurs in Yellowstone National Park.

Anatomy:
Radial section: The multiseriate rays are heterocellular with procumbent body cells and marginal rows of upright cells; vessel-ray parenchyma pits are similar to intervessel pits; perforation plates are exclusively scalariform.

Tangential section: Rays are typically 1-3 seriate; intervessel pits are opposite. Note the axial parenchyma strand left of center.

Cross section: Growth rings are distinct, vessels are solitary and in radial multiples, axial parenchyma is not common, some diffuse.