N. ORD.—JUGLAN DACE:. 157 
GENUS.—CARYA,* NUTT. 
SEX. SYST.—MONCECIA POLYANDRIA. 
CARYA ALBA. 
HICKORY. 
SYN.—_CARYA ALBA, NUTT.; CARYA SQUAMOSA, BART.; JUGLANS 
SQUAMOSA, MICHX.; JUGLANS ALBA, LINN.; JUGLANS COM- 
PRESSA, WILLD. 
COM. NAMES.—SHAG-BARK OR SHELL-BARK HICKORY, WHITE HICK- 
ORY, KISKYTOM. 
A TINCTURE OF THE RIPE ‘‘ MEATS” OF THE NUTS, CARYA ALBA, NUTT. 
Description.—This valuable, rapid-growing tree, furnishing the best hickory 
nuts of the markets, attains a height of from 30 to 80 feet, and a breadth of from 
20 to 50 feet. Stem erect, deliquescent, from 9g to 20 inches in diameter; dark 
smooth when young, but after the twelfth to fifteenth year it exfoliates in strips or 
wide lamine from 1 to 4 feet long, and one-eighth to a quarter inch thick; this 
without injury to the life of the tree. The dark is brownish-gray externally, cin- 
namon color internally, very oily and inflammable, producing on combustion a 
great heat. Wood white internally, yellow near the bark, very valuable in the arts, 
and as firewood ; it is dense, tough, and elastic, its specific gravity .760, and weight 
47% lbs. per cubic foot. Notwithstanding its hardness it rots easily when sub- 
jected to moisture. Leaves 3 or 4 compound, odd-pinnate, appearing with the 
Howers ; deaflels 5, taper-pointed, sessile, or nearly so, finely serrate, the three ter- 
minal obovate or obovate-lanceolate, the two nearest the short petiole much 
smaller, oblong-lanceolate. Sterz/e flowers in pendent catkins, branched to the 
form of a trident, situate on a common peduncle arising from the base of the shoot 
of the season, in the axis of the large, conspicuous, tardily deciduous, scaly, leaf 
buds; calyx naked, clinging to its bract, irregularly 2 to 3 parted. Stamens 3 to 
8 or more, suspended from the bract-like calyx ; //amenés short and inconspicuous 
or wanting; anthers 4, downy pubescent. fertile flowers 2 to 3 or more in a 
pedunculated cluster or spike amid the young leaves, and terminal on the growth 
of the season ; ca/yx with a 4-toothed limb; feéa/s wanting; stigmas 2 to 4, large, 
sessile, papillose, and persistent. /7u7t a globular or depressed-globose, some- 
what four-sided nut; efrcarp thick, fleshy, and fibrous, splitting into 4 equal valves 
when dry; exdocarp bony, smooth between the rounded ridges, and tipped with a 
sharp point, somewhat 2-celled above and 4-celled below; cotyledons corrugated, 
rich, and sweet. Read description of Natural Order under Juglans cinerea, 156, 
* An ancient name of the walnut, capita, Larya. 
