140 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



less peiuhilous branches, and stout branchlets marked with ()bh)n<^ pale lenticels, 

 covered at first with caducous brown scurf and coated with pale glandular pubes- 

 cence, soon bright reddish brown and lustrous, glabrous or pubescent, growing dark 

 gray in their second year and ultimately light gray, and marked by pale and slightly 

 elevated ovate semiorbicular or obscurely .'J-lobed leaf-scars. "Wiiiter-buds: ter- 

 minal broadly ovate, rather obtuse, ^'-f Iwig, h'~ ^^oad, tlie l\ or 4 outer scales 

 nearly triangular, acute, dark brown, pubescent and hirsute on the outer surface, the 

 exterior scales often abruptly narrowed into long rigid points and deciduous before 

 the unfolding of the leaves, inner scales lustrous, covered with resinous glands, yel- 

 low-green often tinged with red, oblong-obovate, pointed, becoming 2^ '-3' long and 

 ^' broad, usually persistent until after the fall of the staminate ameuts; axillary 

 coated at first with thick white tomentum, becoming y-^' long when fully grown. 

 Bark light gray, |'-1' thick, separating in thick stripes often a foot or more long and 

 6'-8' wide, and more or less closely attached to the trunk by the middle, giving it 

 the shaggy appearance to which the tree owes its common name. "Wood heavy, very 

 hard and strong, tough, close-grained, flexible, light brown, with thin nearly white 

 sapwood; largely used in the manufacture of agricultural implements, carriages, 

 wagons, and for axe-handles, baskets, and fuel. The nut is the common hickory nut 

 of commerce. 



Distribution. Low hills or near streams and swamps, in rich deep moderately 

 moist soil from southern Maine to the valley of the St. Lawrence River near Mon- 

 treal, south westward along the northern shores of Lake Erie and Ontario to southern 

 Michigan, central Minnesota, and southeastern Nebraska, southward to Pennsylvania 

 and Delaware and along the Appalachian Mountains to western Florida, northern 

 Alabama and Mississippi, and westward to central Kansas, the Indian Territory and 

 eastern Texas; most common and of its largest size on the western slopes of the 

 southern Alleghany Mountains and in the basin of the lower Ohio River. 



7. Hicoria Carolinae-septentrionalis, Ashe. Shagbark Hickory. 



Leaves 4'-8' long, with slender glabrous petioles, usually 5 but occasionally 3 

 lanceolate long-pointed leaflets gradually narrowed at the acuminate symmetrical 

 or unsymmetrical base, coarsely serrate, ciliate with long white hairs as the leaves 

 unfold, thin, dark green above, pale yellow-green and lustrous below, the upper 

 leaflets 3'-4' long, I'-l^' wide, and about twice as large as those of the lower pair, 

 turning dull brown or yellow-brown some time before falling. Flo"wers : stami- 

 nate in slightly villous aments, pedicellate, glandular-hirsute on the outer surface, 

 with linear elongated acuminate villous bracts; stamens 4; pistillate usually in 2- 

 flowered spikes, oblong and covered with clustered golden hairs, their bract linear 

 and ciliate on the margins. Fruit broader than high, or short-oblong, slightly de- 

 pressed at the apex, f '-1^' wide, dark red-brown, roughened by small pale lenticels, 

 with a husk y-^' thick, splitting freely almost to the base; nut ovate, compressed, 

 prominently 4-angled, acute at the ends, nearly white or pale brown, f -1' long, with 

 a thin shell; seed light brown, sweet. 



A tree, on moist bottom-lands sometimes 80 tall, with a trunk 2-3 in diameter, 

 and short small branches forming a narrow oblong head, or on dry hillsides usually 

 not more than 20-30 tall, with a trunk generally not exceeding a foot in diame- 

 ter, and slender red-brown branchlets marked by numerous small pale lenticels and 

 by the small low truncate or slightly obcordate leaf-scars, becoming ultimately dull 

 gray-brown. Winter-buds : terminal ovate, gradually narrowed to the obtuse 



