146 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



JUGLAND.VClwi:. 



thers 



The female flower is oblongs narrowed at both ends, slightly four-angled and covered Avith 



thick brown scurfy pubescence ; the bract is elong 

 ovate acute 



ated. lanceolate, acute, and twice as long as the 



bractlets and the calyx-lobe. The fruit, which is usually solitary on the branch, is ellip 



dal 



or 



tly obovate, four-ridged to the base with broad thick rid 



^ 



half long, and coated on the outer surface with yello 



brown 



fy pub 



about an inch 



Bnce : the husk 



d 



a 



not 



more 



th 



an 



thhty-second of an inch thick, and in opening splits nearly to the base 



The nut is 



ellipsoidal or sometimes slightly obo 



inch long, three quarters of an inch broad, rounded and 



apiculate at both ends, smooth, dark reddish brown and marked with irregular longitudinal broken bands 

 of small gray spots which often cover the entire surface at the ends. It has a very hard bony shell one 

 eighth of an inch thick or more, with a thick dissepiment separating the cotyledons, a low thin dorsal 

 dissepiment and a small sweet seed with two deep longitudinal grooves on the outer surface of the thick 

 cotyledons, a short broad connective, and a dark brown testa. 



Hlcorla myrhtlccfformls inhabits the banks of rivers and swamps, growing in rich moist soil or 



It is rare and very local in 



the coast region of South Carolina 5 ^ it occurs in the cretaceous belt of central Alabama ^ between the 



sometimes on higher ground at a considerable distance above the stream 



Tombigbee and Alabama Rivers, where it grows with Hicoria Pecan and Qiierciis Diirandiiy and in 

 central Mississippi ; ^ and it is common in southern Arkansas ^ and on the Sierra Madre Mountains of 

 northeastern Mexico.^ 



The wood of Hicoria myristicceformls is heavy, hard, very strong, tough, and close-grained, and 

 contains numerous thin inconspicuous medullary rays, many small open ducts and bands of one or two 

 rows of larger ducts marking the layers of annual growth. It is light brown, with thick lighter colored 

 sapwood composed of eighty or ninety layers of annual growth. The specific gravity of the absolutely 

 dry wood is 0.8016, a cubic foot weighing 49.96 pounds. 



Hicoria myrlstlcmformiSj which, before the exploration of the forests of southern Arkansas, was 

 considered one of the rarest trees of eastern America, was first made known by the younger Michaux, 

 to whom nuts found in the swamps of Goose Creek, fifteen or twenty miles west of Charleston in South 

 Carolina, were given in 1802. The lustrous under surface of the leaves makes it perhaps the most 

 beautiful of the Hickories, and, although it is now rarely cultivated, it might well find a place as an 

 ornamental tree in the gardens and parks of temperate countries.^ 



1 In South Carolina fl"/cona?/i?/m/«C(^(>rmzs grows ou Goose Creek, soil in the neighborhood of Mhoons Valley in the central part of 

 where the species was first discovered, and in the valley of the the state. 



Cooper River not far from Black Oak on the Santee Canal (Ra- 

 venel, BulL Torrey Bot. Club, vi. 81). 



2 In Alabama, where it was discovered in 1890 by Dr. Charles 

 Mohr, Hicoria myristicceforinis grows on low limestone prairies, occu- 



^ In Arkansas Hicoria myristicceformis is common in the south- 

 eastern part of the state between Pine Bluff on the Arkansas River, 

 where it was found in 1881 by Mr. George W. Letterman, and 

 Arkansas City on the Mississippi, and along the Red River bottoms 



pying a narrow belt eighteen or twenty miles long from west to above Fulton in the southwestern part of the state (Harvey, Am. 

 east, which extends from Demopolis on the Tombigbee River to Jour. Forestry^ i. 



453) 



Gallion near the Alabama (Mohr, Garden and Forest, vi. 372). 



^A 



exhibition of a quantity of the nuts in the exhibit 



known Madre Mountains near Monterey, in Nuevo Leon, by Mr. C. G. 

 Df that Pringle, in July, 1888, covering rocky slopes almost to the exclu- 



state at the New Orleans Exposition of 1884, but it was not until sion of other trees (Pringle, Garden and Forest, iii. 362). 



the autumn of 1894 that it was found by Dr. Charles Mohr abound- 

 ing and growing to its largest size in thick forests on calcareous 



^ A Nutmeg-Hickory tree, which has been growing for many 



ton, is now about twenty-five feet high. 



Washing 



