The species, in many selected varieties, is widely cultivated in the southern 

 states. The nuts, which vary in size and shape and in the thickness of their shells, 

 and in the quality of the kernels, are an important article of commerce. The 

 pecan is the State Tree of Texas. 



Specimens have been seen that apparently represent Carya X Lecontei Little, 

 a hybrid that combines the compressed fruit and bitter kernel of C. aquatica and 

 the sessile male catkins, hairy yellowish winter buds, and elongate nut of C. 

 illinoinensis. 



3. Carya cordiformis (Wang.) K. Koch. Bitternut hickory, pignut hickory. 

 Tree often to 30 m. high, with a trunk to 9 dm. in diameter, the light-brown 



red-tinged bark about 15 mm. thick and broken into thin platelike scales that 

 separate on the surface into small thin flakes; branches stout and spreading to 

 form a broad crown; branchlets slender, marked by oblong pale lenticels, at first 

 bright-green and covered more or less with rusty hairs, ultimately becoming light 

 gray; leaves to 25 cm. long; leaflets usually 7 or 9, sessile, ovate-lanceolate to 

 lanceolate or obovate, acuminate at apex, coarsely serrate except at the cuneate 

 to subcordate base, thin and firm, to 15 cm. long and 3 cm. or more wide, dark- 

 yellow-green and glabrous above, light-green and pubescent beneath; overwinter- 

 ing bud-scales lanceolate, sulphur-yellow with persistent scurf; fruit usually 

 obovoid to subglobose, 4-winged from the apex to about the middle; husk thin, 

 puberulous, more or less covered with small yellow scales, splitting only to below 

 the middle; nut with a thin brittle shell, often broader than long, depressed or 

 obcordate at apex, the bright-reddish-brown kernel very bitter. Hicoria cordiformis 

 (Wang.) Britt., H. minima (Marsh.) Britt. 



In low wet woods near the borders of streams and swamps or on high rolling 

 uplands in e. Okla. and e. Tex.; from Fla. to Tex. n. to. N. E., Minn, and Neb. 



4. Carya aquatica (Michx. f.) Nutt. Water hickory, bitter pecan. Fig. 392. 

 Tree sometimes to 30 m. in height, with a trunk rarely exceeding 6 dm. in 



diameter, the bark to 15 mm. thick and separating freely into long loose plate- 

 like light-brown scales tinged with red; overwintering buds reddish-brown, adorned 

 with caducous yellow glands; branches slender, upright to form a narrow crown; 

 branchlets slender, at first reddish-brown or ashy-gray and slightly glandular and 

 coated with a loose pale tomentum, eventually gray and essentially glabrous; leaves 

 to 33 cm. long; leaflets 7 to 13, sessile or stalked, ovate-lanceolate to lanceolate, 

 falcate, acuminate at apex, rounded to cuneate at the more or less oblique base, 

 glabrous, to 75 mm. long and 4 cm. wide, finely or coarsely serrate; fascicled 

 staminate aments peduncled; fruit often in clusters of 3 or 4, subglobose to 

 obovoid, much-compressed, usually broadest above the middle, rounded at the 

 slightly narrowed base, conspicuously 4-winged, dark-brown or nearly black, 

 provided with bright-yellow scales, to 4 cm. long and 32 mm. wide; husk thin, 

 brittle, splitting tardily and usually only to below the middle; nut flattened, some- 

 what obovoid, with a thin dark-reddish-brown somewhat wrinkled shell, rounded 

 and abruptly short-pointed at apex, the dark-brown kernel very bitter. Hicoria 

 aquatica (Michx. f.) Britt. 



In river swamps that are periodically inundated, in e. Okla. and e. Tex.; from 

 Fla. to Okla. and Tex., n. to. Va., s.w. HI. and s.e. Mo. 



5. Carya ovata (Mill.) K. Koch. Shagbark hickory, shellbark. 



Tree to 20 m. or more high, with a trunk to about 1 m. in diameter, the light- 



775 



