115. CARYA AQUATICA WATER HICKORY, BITTER PECAN. 41 



GENUS CARYA, NDTT.* 



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

 rally 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 2-5 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. 



(Garya is the ancient Greek name Kapia of the Walnut.) 



115. CARYA AQUATICA, 

 WATER HICKORY, SWAMP HICKORY, BITTER PECAN. J 

 Ger., Sumpf -Hickory ; Fr., Noyer aquatique ; Sp., Nogal acuatico. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. Leaflets 11-13, lanceolate-acuminate, somewhat oblique and 

 inequilateral, subentire, shining green, slightly pubescent below, the lateral leaflets 

 sessile, the terminal petiolulate. Flowers as described for the genus; lobes of the 

 staminte catkins nearly equal in length, the lateral ones broader, Fruit compressed- 

 globular, pedunculate with thin epicarp having prominent sutures and splitting quite 

 freely to the base; nut angular, rugose, with very thin reddish shell and bitter, as- 

 tringent, much convoluted kernel with purple testa. 



A medium size tree occasionally attaining the height of 60 or 70 ft. 

 (20 m.) withatrunk 30in. (0.90 m.) in diameter, but usually of smaller 

 dimensions, with bark of trunk furrowed longitudinally with scaly rather 

 closely adherent ridges. 



HABITAT. Along the sea-board from Virginia southward to about the 

 latitude of Tampa Bay, and thence westward in the Gulf States into 

 Texas; northward in the Mississippi valley to Missouri, growing in rich 

 low bottomlands and river-swamps. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. Wood moderately heavy and hard, strong, 

 with numerous thin medullary rays and fine open ducts more uniformly 

 distributed through the year's growth than in the other Hickories, and 

 hence causing the annual rings to be less sharply defined. It is of a 

 reddish brown color with abundant creamy-white sap-wood very com- 

 monly spotted and streaked with purple-brown. These spots seem to be 

 caused by the infiltration of some substance along certain ducts, and it is 

 so hard as to turn the edge of the hardest steel. Specific Gravity, 0.7407; 

 Percentage of Ash, 1.27; Relative Approximate Fuel Value. 0.7313; Co- 

 efficient of Elasticity, 101261; Modulus of Rupture, 884; Resistance to 

 Longitudinal Pressure, 486; Resistance to Indentation, 274; Weight of a 

 Cubic Foot in Pounds, 46.16. 



* Hicoria, Raflnesque. 



+ Hicoria aquatica rMichv. n Britton. 



% Britton Bulletin Torrey Botanical Club XV, P. 284. 



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