52 TREES OF NEW ENGLAND. 



Habit. A tall and rather slender tree, 50-70 feet high, with 

 a diameter above the swell of the roots of 2-3 feet ; attaining 

 much greater dimensions south and west ; trunk erect, not 

 shaggy, separating into a few rather large limbs and sending 

 out its upper branches at a sharp angle, forming a handsome, 

 wide-spreading, pyramidal head. 



Bark. Bark of trunk dark gray, thick, hard, close, and 

 rough, becoming narrow-rugged-furrowed ; crinkly on small 

 trunks and branches ; leaf -scars prominent ; season's shoots 

 stout, brown, downy or dusty puberulent, dotted, resinous- 

 scented. 



Winter Buds and Leaves. Buds large, yellowish -brown, 

 ovate, downy. Leaves pinnately compound, alternate, 15-20 

 inches long ; rachis large, downy, swollen at the base ; stipules 

 none ; leaflets 7-9, opposite, large, yellowish-green and smooth 

 above, beneath paler and thick-downy, at least when young, 

 turning to a clear yellow or russet brown in autumn, the three 

 upper obovate, the two lower ovate, all the leaflets slightly 

 serrate or entire, pointed, base acute to rounded, nearly sessile 

 except the odd one. Aromatic when bruised. 



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, pendulous, downy 

 catkins, 4-8 inches long, usually in threes, branching umbel-like 

 from a common peduncle ; scales 3-lobed, hairy ; calyx adnate ; 

 stamens 4 or 5, anthers red, bearded at the tip : fertile flowers 

 on peduncles at the end of the season's shoots ; calyx toothed, 

 hairy, adherent to ovary ; corolla none ; stigmas 2, hairy. 



Fruit. October. Generally sessile on terminal peduncles, 

 single or in pairs, as large or larger than the fruit of the shag- 

 bark, or as small as that of the pignut, oblong-globose to 

 globose : husk hard and thick, separating in 4 segments nearly 

 to the base, strong-scented: nut globular, 4-ridged near the 

 top, thick-shelled : kernel usually small, sweet, edible. The 

 superior size of the fruit and the smallness of the kernel 

 probably give rise to the common name, "mockernut." 



Horticultural Value. Hardy throughout New England ; 

 prefers a rich, well-drained soil, but grows well in rocky, 



