132 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



JUGLANDACE^. 



aestivation and much longer tlian the bractlets and calyx-lobe ; ^ ovule solitary, erect from the bottom 

 of the cell, orthotropous. Fruiting involucre ovoid, globose, or pyriform, thin or thick, becoming hard 

 and woody at maturity, four-valved, the sutures alternate with those of the nut, sometimes more or less 

 broadly winged, splitting promptly or tardily to the base or to the middle, marked on the inner surface 

 with broad dark veins radiating from the thickened base. Nut oblong, obovate, or subglobose, acute, 

 acuminate or rounded at the apex, and tipped by the hardened remnants of the styles, narrowed and 

 usually rounded at the base furnished with the usually persistent hardened acute point of attachment 

 to the involucre* < 



ylindrical or compressed contrary to the 



separating by the dorsal sutures 



in germination into two valves, the valves alternate with the cotyledons, their walls thin and brittle, 

 or thick, hard and bony, smooth or variously rugose or ridged on the outer surface and containing 



numerous larg 



gitudinal 



cavities filled with dark or light astringent 



coarse powder, four-celled at the base by the development to above the middle of a thin dorsal partition 

 at right angles with the valves, and by a lower ventral partition in their direction, and two-celled at the 

 apex by the projection downward into the cavity of a thick partition at right angles with the dorsal 

 basal partition, and divided to receive the short broad point of the seed. Seed solitary, filling the 

 cavity of the nut, exalbuminous, two-lobed from the bottom nearly to the middle, the lobes oblong, 

 compressed, variously grooved on the back by the projection inward of longitudinal ridges on the walls 

 of the nut, concave on the inner face, more or less deeply two-lobed at the apex, the connective thick 

 and short-pointed ; testa thin, membranaceous, of two coats, the outer coat light brown. Embryo flat. 



oily, sweet or bitter ; radicle short, superior, filling the apex of the cavity of the nut. 



2 



Hicoria is confined to the temperate regions of eastern North America, and is distributed from the 



valley of the St. Lawrence River to the highlands of Mexico, where 



3 



demic species 



Nine 



species are known, eight of which inhabit the territory of the United States, the headquarters of the 

 genus as represented by the greatest number of species being in southern Arkansas. Traces of Hicoria 

 have been found in the tertiary rocks of Greenland ; * palaeontologists have described numerous species 

 from the upper tertiary formation of Europe,^ and there are evidences that it once ranged in North 

 America far to the westward of its present home 



Many of the species of Hicoria produce strong tough and very valuable wood ^ and edible nuts of 



1 The involucral character of the outer covering of the pistiUate united into a sack. Catkins of staminate flowers at the base of 

 flower of Hicoria is shown by the fact that it sometimes contains young branches from the axils of the inner bud-scales. Husk 

 two or three ovaries, producing two or three separate or more or of the fruit thick or rarely thin, without sutural ridges, or in 

 less united nuts inclosed in one husk. (See Gray, Proc. Phil Acad, one species obscurely ridged; nut compressed, more or less promi- 

 nently four-ridged and angled; the walls and partitions thick 



1884, 15.) 



^ The species of Hicoria may be grouped in the following sec- 

 tions: — 



Apocarya (C. de CandoUe, Prodr. xvi. pt. ii. 144). Buds com- 



lacunse minute, filled with 



sweet. 



« Hicoria Mexicana, Britton, Bull Torrey BoL Club, xv. 283 



pressed, covered with four scales valvate in sestivation, the inner (1888). 



slightly accrescent, often obscurely pinnate at the apex ; axillary 



buds superposed two or three together, often stipitate, the outer 



scales united into a sack soon opening at the apex. Catkins of 



staminate flowers usually from separate or rarely leaf-bearing 



buds in the axils of leaves of the previous year, and formed before 



midsummer, or occasionally at the base of shoots of the year, / 



Husk of the fruit thin, prominently ridged at the sutures ; nut 2 



cylindrical or compressed, not at all or obscurely ridged; the walls torieSy ii., iii.). 



Mexicana, Engelmann, Hemsley 



iii. 162 (1882). 



^ Saporta, Origine Paleontologique des ArbreSj 296. 

 ^ Zittel, Handb. PalcBontolog. ii. 447, f. 272, 4-8. 

 ^ Newberry, Ann. Lye. N, Y. ix. 72 (Notes on (hi 



North America 



ux 



1-5, t. 58, f. 2 ! viii. 236 (Contrib. Fossil Fl. W, 



and partitions thin and brittle, or in one species thick and hard; 



lacunae large, irregular, filled with dark powder, or in one species ness combined with lightness. 



^ No other wood equals the best Hickory in strength and tough- 



knew 



small; kernel sweet or bitter. 



142) 



with 



to twelve closely imbricated scales, the outer opening in the au- 



used it for the handles of their tools. (See Le Page du Pratz, His- 

 toire de la Louisiane, ii. 26.) The European colonists soon learnt 

 its quality, and, writing: early in the seventeenth centurv. William 



tumn, and falling before winter or early in the spring, the inner Wood in the New England's Prospect ri4) tells us : " The Walnut 



Walnut 



accrescent, large, and often brightly colored and reflexed at ma- 

 turity; axillary buds solitary, their outer scales at first sometimes deale more tough, and more serviceable, and altogether al heavier 



