180 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



FAMILY IV. THE WALNUT FAMILY. JUGLANDACEJE. 



De Candolle. 



The plants belonging to this family are lofty timber trees, 

 found native in the northern temperate regions of both conti- 

 nents. They are distinguished for their compound, pinnate 

 leaves, exhaling an aromatic odor when crushed; the barren 

 flowers borne on simple or compound pendulous catkins ; the 

 fertile, in a small terminal group, or solitary. There are few 

 genera ; — one common to Europe and this country, one peculiar 

 to this country, and a few others more recently and less per- 

 fectly known. 



The kernels of several of the species are sweet and whole- 

 some, abounding in oil. The rind of the English walnut is 

 extremely astringent, the rind and the bark of the butternut 

 possess cathartic properties, and the husk and bark of both 

 species of American walnut and of several of the hickories, may 

 be used in dyeing. The wood of all is highly valuable as 

 timber. 



Insects on the Walnuts and Hickories. — The caterpillar of 

 the beautiful Luna moth, (Attacus Luna; Harris's Report, p. 

 277), feeds on the leaves of the hickories and walnuts. So does 

 a species of the Limacodes or slug-caterpillars, (ib. p. 303). 

 Swarms of caterpillars of one or perhaps several species of 

 Pygcera are found on the same trees, (ib. p. 313). The smaller 

 limbs of the pignut hickory are found, during July, covered on 

 their lower surface by clusters of the Aphis caryce, (ib. p. 190), 

 which suck their sap; and the bark and wood of this tree are 

 bored, sometimes very extensively, by the larvae of a Buprestian 

 beetle, (ib. p. 40). Grubs of the Apate basillaris sometimes 

 destroy the shellbark by boring to its heart, where they undergo 

 their transformation, (ib. p. 70). The caterpillar of the walnut 

 sphinx, (Sme?*i?ithus ji/gla?idis), feeds on the leaves of the black 

 walnut and the butternut, (ib. p. 230), and the most, magnificent 

 of the American moths, called by Dr. Harris the regal walnut 



