142 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. juglandace^. 



lanceolate or obovate, long-pointed, and rather coarsely serrate with reflexed callous teeth except at the 

 base, which is equally or unequally wedge-shaped or subcordate, and are sessile with the exception of the 

 terminal leaflet, which is gradually narrowed into a long or short petiolule ; when they unfold they are 

 lustrous brio-ht yellow-green or bronzy red, pubescent above and coated below with pale tomentum and 

 lustrous o-olden often persistent glands ; and at maturity they are thin and firm, dark yellow-green and 

 glabrous on the upper surface, and on the lower surface lighter and glabrous or pubescent, especially 

 alono- the midribs, or coated with golden glands, from four to six inches in length and from three quar- 

 ters of an inch to an inch and a quarter in width, with narrow rounded pale midribs and slender primary 

 veins, or those of the lowest pair are often not more than half this size. The catkins of staminate 

 flowers are usually produced from branches of the previous year, but sometimes from the base of shoots 

 of the year ; they are slightly pubescent, and from three to four inches long, with a slender peduncle 

 often an inch in length, and lanceolate acute bracts rounded and boat-shaped on the back, coated with 

 long rusty hairs, and half an inch in length. Before they unfold the buds of the staminate flowers are 

 flattened, green, glandular with scattered pale glands, and covered toward the apex with long slender 

 pale rufous hairs ; the bract is ovate, acute, twice as long as the lobes of the calyx, and, like them, coated 

 on the outer surface with scattered rufous hairs ; there are four stamens with ovate yellow anthers deeply 

 eraarginate at the apex and about as long as the lobes of the calyx. The pistillate flowers are half an 

 inch in length, slightly four-angled, and covered with yellow scurfy tomentum ; the bract is lanceolate, 

 acute, hairy at the margins, and coated on the inner surface with soft pale hairs ; the bractlets are broadly 

 ovate, acute, thin and spreading, hairy-pubescent on the inner surface, and rather shorter than the 

 acute calyx-lobe ; the stigmas, which mature and begin to wither before the staminate flowers open, are 

 exserted and reflexed at maturity, as long as the bract, and Hght green. The fruit is three quarters of 

 an inch to an inch and a half long, obovate to subglobose, and four-winged from the apex to about the 

 middle, with a husk an eighth of an inch thick or less, more or less thickly covered on the outer surface 

 with golden scurfy pubescence, and conspicuously marked on the Hght brown inner surface with dark 

 veins radiating from the base. The nut is ovate or oblong, often broader than long, compressed, 

 rounded, and marked at the base with dark lines along the sutures and alternate with them, de- 

 pressed or obcordate and abruptly contracted into a long or short point at the apex, gray tinged with 

 red or light reddish brown, and u-regularly and coarsely reticulate on the surface, with a thin or rarely 

 with a thick brittle sheU which contains numerous large lacunae, and, like the thin rugose partitions 

 of the interior, is dark reddish brown and very rugose on the inner surface. The seed is compressed, 

 with flat cotyledons, rounded and deeply two-parted at the base, rounded and lobed at the apex, the 

 lobes being as long or longer than their short-pointed connective, deeply rugose with irregular cross 

 folds, covered with a bright reddish brown coat, and very bitter. 



Hicoria minima is distributed from southern Maine to the islands of the St. Lawrence near the 

 mouth of the Nicolet River, westward from the neighborhood of Montreal through Ontario,^ central 

 Michigan and Minnesota to southeastern Nebraska,^ eastern Kansas,^ and the Indian Territory, and 

 southward to the valley of the Appalachicola River in western Florida and to that of the Trinity River in 

 Texas. An inhabitant of low wet woods near the borders of streams and swamps or of high rolling 

 uplands, Hicoria minima, which reaches a higher latitude than any other Hickory-tree, is the most 

 abundant species in Canada, where it is common south and west of Montreal, growing usually in low 

 ground, and in the western part of Ontario is one of the principal trees of the forest. Absent from 

 the mountain forests of northern New England and New York, in southern New England it is one of 

 the largest and commonest species of the genus, and is often found remote from streams ; it abounds 

 in all the central states east and west of the Appalachian Mountains, growing to its largest size on the 



1 Bmuet, Cat. Veg. Lig. Can. 47. — Bell, Geolog. Rep. Can. ^ Bessey, Rep. Nebraska State Board Agric. 1894:, 109. 



1879-80, 52°. — Macoun, Cat. Can. PL 434. » Mason, Distribution of Kansas Trees, 13. 



