35. JlIGLANS NlGRA BLACK WALNUT. 25 



HABITAT. Central and eastern United States, north to the latitude of 

 central New York and south nearly to the Gulf; most abundant and lux- 

 urious along the Ohio river and its tributaries. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. Wood rather hard, heavy and durable, taking 

 a beautiful polish and easily worked. It is of a violet-brown color, turn- 

 ing blackish with age. The sap-wood, which is thin, is of a yellowish- 

 white, in striking contrast with the color of the heart-wood. Specific 

 Gravity, 0.6115; Percentage of Ash, 0.79 ; Relative Approximate Fuel 

 Value, 0.6067; Coefficient of Elasticity -, 109200; Modulus of Rupture, 856; 

 Resistance to Longitudinal Pressure, 583 ; Resistance to Indentation, 196; 

 Weight of a Cubic Foot in Pounds, 38.11. 



USES. This is one of the most valuable of our American timbers for 

 cabinet-making, interior-finishing, gun-stocks, etc. This use has gen- 

 erally supplanted its earlier use for fence-rails, posts, shingles, boat-build- 

 ing, etc., for which it was highly esteemed. The fruit of this tree is a 

 valuable nut with a kernel of peculiar flavor,, and though it is generally 

 considered as delicious, many have to acquire a taste for it. It is very 

 rich, and an oil is sometimes expressed from it which is said to be used in 

 cookery. The kernel has also been used in making bread. 



The pulpy husk surrounding the nut yields a dye which imparts to 

 wool a substantial dark-brown color. 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES. The leaves are supposed to possess the same 

 properties as do those of the allied European Walnut (J. regia), which have 

 been found in the highest degree efficacious in scrofula, an infusion or 

 extract being taken internally, and, at the same time, a strong decoction 

 being applied to the ulcers and used as a collyrium when the eyes are dis- 

 tressed. It appears to act as a moderately aromatic, bitter and astring- 

 ent. They are said to have proved useful as a topical application in ma- 

 lignant pustule.* 



NOTE. Micheaux mentions dug-out canoes made of this timber, and 

 some of them (made from single logs, of course) as being "more than 

 forty feet long and two or three feet wide." 



GENUS CARYA, NUTT. 



Leaves odd-pinnate with few leaflets; leaf -buds scaly and from them appear 

 generally both kinds of flowers, the fertile at the extremity of the growth and the 

 sterile at the base, the leaves between. Sterile flowers in slender, imbricated, mostly 

 forked catkins; scales 3-parted; calyx mostly 3-parted; stamens 3-10, free, filaments 

 short or wanting and anthers hairy. Fertile flowers clustered 3-5 together, their 

 common peduncle terminating the shoot of the season; calyx 4-cleft, superior; petals 

 none; stigmas sessile, 2-lobed, the lobes bifid, papillose, persistent. Fruit (October) 

 with a coriaceous but at length dry and hard epicarp (shuck), finally falling away in 

 4-valves, and a smoothish horny endocarp (shell) with a 2-lobed nucleus. 



Trees with hard bark, very tough wood and continuous pith; pubescence stellate. 



(" Carya" is the ancient Greek name Kapi^a of the Walnut.) 



* U. S. Dispensatory, 16th ed., p. 850. 



