162 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. juglandace^. 



tunij and cover the bud during the winter ; they are slightly accrescent in the springs and fall i 

 after the branch bes'ins to grow : the innermost scales^ which do not fall until after the opening of 



&""•" "^ fc» 



staminate flowers, are at maturity ovate, rounded or acute and short-pointed at the apex, light green and 

 covered with soft silky pubescence on the outer, and often bright red and pilose on the inner surface, 

 from an inch to an inch and a half long and half an inch broad, becoming much reflexed and twisted 

 before falling. The leaves, which are from eight to twelve inches in length, are more fragrant, with a 

 powerful pleasant resinous odor, than those of other Hickory-trees, and are composed of five or seven 

 leaflets and of hirsute or tomentose petioles flattened and grooved and gradually much enlarged at the 

 base ; the leaflets are oblong-lanceolate, or are obovate-lanceolate toward the extremity of the leaf, gradu- 

 ally or abruptly acuminate with long or short points, mostly equilateral, equally or unequally rounded 

 or wedge-shaped at the base which is sometimes rounded on one side and oblique on the other, and 

 minutely or sometimes coarsely and occasionally very obscurely serrate, and are sessile or short-petio- 

 lulate with the exception of the terminal one which is decurrent by its wedge-shaped base on a short 

 stalk varying from one quarter to one half of an inch in length; when they unfold they are thin, light 

 yellow-green, covered with soft pale pubescence, and tipped at the apex with clusters of long pale hairs, 

 and at maturity are dark yellow-green and rather lustrous above, and lustrous, paler or often light 



5-color or brown on the lower surface which is clothed with soft pale pubescence, most thickly 



& 



along the stout yellow midribs, slightly impressed and often hirsute above, and along the slender veins 

 connected by fine reticulate veinlets ; the upper leaflets are from five to eight inches long, and from 

 three to five inches wide, and are often two or three times as large as those of the lowest pair. The 

 catkins of staminate flowers are four or five inches in length, with slender light green stems and 

 common peduncles coated with matted hairs, and lanceolate acute scarious hairy caducous lateral bracts 

 half an inch in length ; the flowers, which open from the beginning of April in southern Florida to the 

 end of May in eastern New England, are short-pedicellate, pale yellow-green, from one sixteenth to 

 one eighth of an inch long, and scurfy-pubescent on the outer surface, with elongated ovate-lanceolate 

 bracts ending in tufts of long pale hairs and three or four times the length of the ovate rounded calyx- 

 lobes ; there are four stamens with nearly sessile oblong emarginate bright red hirsute anthers. The 

 pistillate flowers are produced in crowded two to five-flowered spikes and are slightly contracted above 

 the middle and coated with pale tomentum ; the anterior bract is ovate, acute, sometimes a quarter of an 

 inch long, about twice the length of the broadly ovate nearly triangular bractlets and calyx-lobe, and, 

 like them, glabrous or puberulous on the inner surface ; the stigmas are dark red and begin to wither 

 before the anthers shed their pollen. The fruit is ellipsoidal or obovate, gradually narrowed at both ends, 

 acute at the apex, abruptly contracted toward the base, more or less roughened with small lenticels, 

 pilose or nearly glabrous, dark reddish brown, and from an inch and one half to two inches long, with 

 a husk about one eighth of an inch thick sphtting to the middle or nearly to the base. The nut is 

 nearly globose or ellipsoidal or obovoid-oblong, narrowed at both ends, rounded at the base, and acute 

 and sometimes attenuated and long-pointed at the apex, much or only slightly compressed, obscurely or 

 prominently four-ridged, rather conspicuously reticulate-venulose, light reddish brown, becoming darker 

 and sometimes red with age, from three quarters of an inch to two inches in length and from three 

 quarters of an inch to an inch and a quarter in width, with very thick hard walls and partitions, and 

 a small sweet seed deeply divided by the partitions of the cavity and covered by a dark brown lustrous 

 coat, the cotyledons being deeply grooved on the back by the broad longitudinal ridges on the inner 

 face of the wall of the nut. 



Hicoria alba is distributed from southern Ontario^ southward to Cape Canaveral and the shores of 

 Tampa Bay in Florida, and westward to Missouri, eastern Kansas ^ and the Indian Territory, and the 

 valley of the Brazos River in Texas. Comparatively rare at the north, where it grows on ridges and 

 hillsides in rich soil, or less frequently on the alluvial of river-bottoms, Hicoria alba is the commonest 



Briinet 



Macoun, Cat Can. PL 433. 



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