JUGLANDACEiE 



143 



9. Hicoria alba, Britt. Mockernut. Big Bud Hickory. 



Leaves fragrant, with a powerful resinous pleasant odor, 8'-12' long, with hirsute 

 or tomentose petioles, and 5-7 oblong-lanceolate to obovate-lanceolate leaflets gradu- 

 ally or abruptly acuminate, mostly equilateral, equally or unequally rounded or 

 wedge-shaped at the base, minutely or coarsely serrate, sessile or short-stalked, dark 

 yellow-green and rather lustrous above, lustrous, paler or light orange-colored or 

 brown and clothed with soft pale pubescence on the lower surface, the upper leaflets 

 o'-8' long and 3'-5' wide, and two or three times as large as those of the lowest pair. 

 Flo"wers: staminate in aments 4'-o' long, with slender light green stems coated 

 with matted hairs, short-stalked, pale yellow-green, ye'"^' ^^^S^ scurfy-pubescent, 

 with elongated ovate-lanceolate bracts ending in tufts of long pale hairs, and three 

 or four times as long as the calyx-lobes, and 4 stamens with nearly sessile oblong 

 emarginate bright red hirsute anthers; pistillate in crowded 2-5-flowered spikes, 

 slightly contracted above the middle, coated with pale tomentum, the bract ovate, 

 acute, sometimes ^' long, about twice as long as the broadly ovate nearly triangular 

 bractlets and calyx-lobe; stigmas dark red. Fruit ellipsoidal or obovate, gradually 

 narrowed at the ends, acute at the apex, abruptly contracted toward the base, pilose 

 or nearly glabrous, dark red-brown, 1^-2' long, with a husk about ^ thick splitting 

 to the middle or nearly to the base; nut nearly globose, ellipsoidal or obvate- 

 oblong, narrowed at the ends, rounded at the base, acute and sometimes attenuated 

 and long-pointed at the apex, much or only slightly compressed, obscurely or promi- 

 nently 4-ridged, light reddish brown, becoming darker and sometimes red with age, 

 |'-2' long, f '-1^' wide, with very thick hard walls and partitions ; seed small, sweet, 

 dark brown, and lustrous. 



A tree, rarely 100 high, usually much smaller, with a tall trunk occasionally 3 

 in diameter, comparatively small spreading branches forming a narrow or often a 



broad round-topped head of upright rigid or of gracefully pendulous branches, and 

 stout branchlets clothed at first with thick pale tomentum, rather bright brown, 

 nearly glabrous or pubescent or tomentose, and marked by conspicuous pale lenticels 

 during their first season, becoming light or dark gray, with pale emarginate leaf- 

 scars almost equally lobe'd or elongated with the lowest lobe two or three times as 



