WALNUT FAMILY 



Terminal leaflet larger than the others, often decurrent on slender 

 stalk. Other leaflets are oblong to obovate-lanceolate, rounded 

 equally or unequally at base, sharply serrate with incurved teeth, 

 acute or acuminate. Leaflet vernation involute. Upper leaflets 

 six to eight inches long, two to two and one-half broad, the lowest 

 pair much smaller. They come out of the bud bright bronze green, 

 hairy ; when full grown are thick, firm, smooth, dark yellow green 

 above, paler beneath. In autumn they turn clear or rusty yellow. 

 Petioles slender, usually smooth, grooved slightly, enlarged at 

 base. 



Flowers. May, June, when leaves are half grown. Monoecious. 

 Staminate flowers borne in slender catkins, three to seven inches 

 long, usually three catkins on one stout peduncle. The flowers are 

 on short pedicels, yellow green, tomentose ; bract lanceolate, acute, 

 hairy ; calyx-lobes rounded, ovate ; stamens four, anthers nearly 

 sessile, dark yellow. Pistillate flowers in a two to five-flowered 

 spike; bract is lanceolate, acute ; bractlets and calyx dark green, 

 hairy ; stigmas yellow, and wither before the anthers shed their 

 pollen. 



Fruit. Variable, fig-form, ellipsoidal, subglobose, rounded or 

 depressed at apex, abruptly or gradually narrowed at the base, often 

 obscurely winged to the middle or entirely to the base. In some 

 forms the four valves open and discharge the nut, in others they 

 partly open and retain it. Nut is oblong, oval, or subglobose, with 

 smooth hard shell, thick or thin. Kernel small, sweet or slightly 

 bitter. 



Distinguishing Characters. Bud scales imbricate ; staminate 

 catkins borne on branches of the year. Leaflets five, seven or nine, 

 oblong or obovate-lanceolate. Fruit pyriform or globose ; husk 

 thin, slightly ridged at the sutures, not splitting freely to the base ; 

 nut varying in form, thick-shelled, kernel sweet ; bark closely fur- 

 rowed, rarely hanging in loose plates. 



Hicoria glabra is a beautiful tree and certainly worthy of a 

 pleasanter name than that of Pignut. But the early settlers 

 of this country judged trees by the standard of use rather 

 than beauty ; and as the fruit of this tree did not compare fa- 

 vorably with that of the Shellbark, both tree and fruit were 

 given over to the pigs without question. However, another 

 explanation of the name is given. The typical shape of the 

 fruit is pyriform, it looks not unlike a small fig and it has 

 been suggested that pignut is a corruption of fignut. But 

 there seem to be no facts upon which to base this theory as 

 there is no record that the tree was ever called fignut, and 

 the earliest records mention it as pignut. 

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