230 FAMILIAR TREES AND THEIR LEAVES. 



other species, and they may be broken with a very 

 slight blow. 



The swamp hickory is distributed from Maine to 

 Minnesota and southeastern Nebraska ; southward it 

 extends to Florida and eastern Texas. The bark of 

 the trunk is rather smooth and close. 



Pecan Nut. ^he P ecan nu ^ is a Southern species 

 Carya otivaformis. of hickory, which grows from 80 to 



Carya Elinamis. 1() q and occas i ona H v tfQ f eet high. 



There are from nine to fifteen leaflets on a stem ; 

 these are finely toothed and slender-pointed, 

 and of a warm, deep yellow-green color. 

 The fruit, about an inch and a half long, 

 has a thin, yellow-haired husk which 

 splits in four sections nearly to the base, 

 and, discharging the nut, not infre- 

 quently remains on the branch through 

 the winter. The smooth, thin-shelled 

 nut has a very sweet kernel, and is 

 considered by many the best flavored 

 pecan Leaflet, of all nuts, native or foreign. 



The tree is a rapid grower, and it 

 will produce a small amount of fruit at the end of 

 its eighth or tenth year. It is the largest of the 

 hickory trees, and grows in rich soil in the neigh- 

 borhood of streams from Iowa, southern Illinois and 

 Indiana to Louisiana and Texas ; it also extends into 



