IV. 1. THE BLACK WALNUT. 185 



the branches. I have found trees of nearly similar dimensions 

 in many parts of the State, and much larger ones on the Con- 

 necticut River. 



Sp. 2. The Black Walnut. J. nigra. L. 



Figured in Catesby, Plate 67 ; in Michaux, Sylva, I, Plate 30 ; and in Audu- 

 bon's Birds of America, II, Plate 156. 



A fine tree with spreading branches and a broad round head. 

 The bark is rough and furrowed, and darker than that of the 

 butternut tree. 



The leaves have from six to ten pairs of leaflets and an odd 

 one. They differ from those of the butternut by being smooth 

 above, while those of the butternut are rough ; in having the 

 leaf-stalk smooth, the leaves more smooth on both surfaces, more 

 strongly serrated, less sessile, and a little more pointed, with the 

 leaf-stalk less swollen, and the buds smaller. The fruit is 

 round, and on a short footstalk ; that of the butternut, long, ovate, 

 and on a long footstalk. 



It is found in Massachusetts, but comes to its greatest perfec- 

 tion, and displays its fullest proportions in the States on the Ohio. 

 On the banks and islands of that river, Michaux says he has 

 often seen trees three or four feet in diameter, and sixty or 

 seventy feet in height, and that it is not rare to find them of 

 the thickness of six or seven feet. " When it stands insulated, 

 its branches, extending themselves horizontally to a great dis- 

 tance, spread into a spacious head, which gives it a very majes- 

 tic appearance." As it is found growing with us, it is remark- 

 able rather for beauty than for majesty ; yet if the flourishing 

 young trees which are now to be seen are allowed to increase 

 for a century, they will probably merit the encomium bestowed 

 by Michaux. 



The sterile flowers are loosely set on green, simple catkins, 

 from four to seven inches long, dependent from the axil of the 

 last year's leaves. Stamens very numerous, twenty to thirty or 

 more, green, short, sessile, close set within a nearly circular pe- 

 rianth of six rounded lobes. The fertile flowers are sessile on 

 a terminal common footstalk, an inch or more long. Each cup 

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