An Aberrant Walnut. 85 



tions, and, to the knowledge of the owner, has borne these pe- 

 culiar nuts practically every season for forty years. 



In connection with the idea that these nuts might have been 

 caused by cross pollination and fertihzation from a hickory, 

 it is interesting to note that a hickory tree grew seven or eight 

 meters from this tree until five years ago, but the tree con- 

 tinued to bear these peculiar nuts for four years after the hickory 

 was cut down. A hickory, twenty to twenty-five years old is 

 now growing about 30 meters from the "walnut" tree in question, 

 but only three meters from this hickory grows a walnut, twenty- 

 five to thirty years old, which produces only normal walnuts. 

 Of course this idea of cross pollination can scarcely be enter- 

 tained on account of the fact that it is that portion of the nut 

 which is produced by the parent sporophyte that shows the 

 "hybrid" characters. The bark of this Tennessee tree shows 

 some hickory characters and it is possible that the histological 

 characters, when Examined, will indicate a cross. 



Not all the nuts show the equal division into a "walnut" and 

 "hickory" exocarp. In some the hickory-like portion occupies 

 but a small area (six to eight millimeters in diameter) at the apex. 

 In others this occupies a fourth of the apical part of the nut. In 

 still others the division between the two kinds of tissue is not 

 transverse but runs up much higher on one side than on the 

 other. All of the nuts examined, with one exception, show the 

 characteristic walnut endocarp. One nut, however, has an 

 endocarp very closely resembHng that of the bitter nut hickory 

 {Hicoria minima, Marsh, Britton) while the exocarp is walnut 

 in its characters. Some of the nuts also show peculiar marks, 

 resembling leaf scars, on the projecting edge of the basal or 

 "walnut" half of the nut. 



Arrangements have been made for getting material and 

 growing the same and it is proposed to make a careful study of 

 the problem from all view points. The purpose of this pre- 

 liminary report is chiefly to call attention to these plants and 

 request anyone having information of similar plants to report 

 the same. Any such information or facts regarding any un- 

 usual behavior in the fruiting of walnuts will be gratefully re- 

 ceived. 

 Washburn College, Topeka, Kansas. 



