CHAPTER VII. 



HICKORY 



Hicoria, Rafinesque. Name probably fieri ved from 

 the aboriginal or Indian word hickery, or hickory, the 

 common name for these nuts among the tribes formerly 

 inhabiting the Middle and Southern Atlantic States. 



Order, Juglandace.ee, (Walnut family). Native de- 

 ciduous trees of large size, with compound serrate leaves 

 with an odd number of leaflets, varying from five to fif- 

 teen in the different species, the three terminal ones 

 usually much the largest, the lower ones on opposite 

 sides of the rather stout leafstalk. Male catkins slen- 

 der, cylindrical, pendulous, two to six inches long, three 

 in a cluster, on a naked peduncle or stalk (Fig. 46) 

 springing from the base of the terminal buds of the pre- 

 vious season's twigs, and just below the first set of new 

 leaves in spring; calyx unequally three-parted ; stamens 

 three to eight. Female flowers two or more in a cluster, 

 from the end of the new growth of the season, which 

 becomes the common peduncle or fruit-stalk of a single 

 nut or cluster of nuts. The flowers are destitute of 

 petals ; stigma short, broad, and four-lobed ; husk fleshy 

 or leathery, smooth, very thick in some species and 

 thin in others, partly or wholly four-lobed, opening in 

 some, allowing the nut to drop out at maturity, in others 

 adhering, falling off entire when ripe. Nuts with hard, 

 bone-like shell, round or oblong, smooth or deeply four 

 to six angled, somewhat flattened or compressed in most 

 of the species ; kernel two-lobed, oily, sweet and deli- 

 cious, as in the common shellbark hickory, or extremely 

 bitter, as in the bitter nut. 



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