50 TREES OF NEW ENGLAND. 



valley and along the western slopes of the Green mountains ; 

 Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, common. 



South to Delaware and along the mountains to Florida ; west to 

 Minnesota, Kansas, Indian territory, and Texas. 



Habit. The tallest of the hickories and proportionally the 

 most slender, from 50 to 75 feet in height, and not more than 

 2 feet in trunk diameter ; rising to a great height in the 

 Ohio and Indiana river bottoms. The trunk, shaggy in 

 old trees, rises with nearly uniform diameter to the point 

 of furcation, throwing out rather small branches of unequal 

 length and irregularly disposed, forming an oblong or rounded 

 head with frequent gaps in the continuity of the foliage. 



Bark. Trunk in young trees and in the smaller branches 

 ash-gray, smoothish to seamy ; in old trees, extremely char- 

 acteristic, usually shaggy, the outer layers separating into 

 long, narrow, unequal plates, free at one or both ends, easily 

 detachable ; branchlets smooth and gray, with conspicuous 

 leaf -scars; season's shoots stout, more or less downy, numerous- 

 dotted. 



Winter Buds and Leaves. Buds tomentose, ovate to oblong, 

 terminal buds large, much swollen before expanding ; inner 

 scales numerous, purplish-fringed, downy, enlarging to 5-6 

 inches in length as the leaves unfold. Leaves pinnately 

 compound, alternate, 12-20 inches long; petiole short, rough, 

 and somewhat swollen at base; stipules none; leaflets usually 

 5, sometimes 3 or 7, 3-7 inches long, dark green above, yel- 

 lowish-green and downy beneath when young, the three upper 

 large, obovate to lanceolate, the two low r er much smaller, oblong 

 to oblong-lanceolate, all finely serrate and sharp-pointed ; base 

 obtuse, rounded or acute, mostly inequilateral ; nearly sessile 

 save the odd leaflet; stipels none. 



Inflorescence. May. Sterile and fertile flowers on the 

 same tree, appearing when the leaves are fully grown, sterile 

 at the base of the season's shoots, in slender, green, pendulous 

 catkins, 4-6 inches long, usually in threes, branching umbel-like 

 from a common peduncle ; flower-scales 3-parted, the middle 

 lobe much longer than the other two, linear, tipped with long 



