42 HOUGH'S AMERICAN WOODS. 



ORDER JUGLANDACE-ffi: WALNUT FAMILY. 



A family of six genera and about thirty-five species of important trees with 

 aromatic bark and watery juice, mostly of the warmer parts of the north tem- 

 perate zone. Two genera are represented in the United States. 



Leaves alternate, deciduous, odd-pinnate, with long grooved petioles exstipulate, 

 the leaflets sessile or nearly so excepting the terminal one which is usually long- 

 stalked. Flowers monoecious, opening after the unfolding of the leaves; the 

 staminate in long drooping lateral aments on the growth of the previous season; 

 calyx 3 to 6-lobed, each in the axil of and adnate to a bract; stamens several with 

 short distinct filaments and longitudinally dehiscent anthers; pistillate in spikes 

 or solitary terminating the new growth, bracteate and usually two-bracteolate ; 

 calyx 3-5-lobed; ovary inferior and 1-celled or incompletely 3-4-celled and con- 

 taining a solitary erect orthotropous ovule; style short with 2 plumose stigmas. 

 Fruit a bony incompletely 2-4-celled nut inclosed in an indehiscent or 4-valved 

 exocarp; seed without albumen, large, solitary, 2-lobed, fleshy and very oily; 

 cotyledons 2-lobed, corrugated or sinuose; radicle minute, superior, at apex of nut. 



GENUS HICORIA, RAF. 



Leaves with thick and firm ovate to obovate leaflets, increasing in size from 

 below upwards, often glandular-dotted, usually unequal at base, and acuminate 

 at apex, serrate, veins commonly forking near the margins. Flowers: staminate 

 aments slender, drooping and usually in threes with common peduncle from the 

 axils of leaf-scars at the base of the shoots of the season or in clusters from buds 

 in the axils of leaf-scars near the summit of the growth of the previous season, 

 the lateral branches from the axils of persistent bracts ; calyx 2-3-lobed, adnate to 

 the bracts; stamens 3-10 with ovate-oblong hairy anthers; pistillate flowers sessile, 

 in mostly 2-10-flowered terminal spikes; calyx unequally 4-lobed; stigmas short- 

 papillose. Fruit subglobose, oblong, ovoid or pyriform, with husk (epicarp) 

 woody at maturity and separating more or less completely into 4 valves, the 

 sutures alternate with those of the nut and falling away at maturity; nut with 

 bony crustaceous shell (endocarp), 4-celled at base, 2-celled at apex; seed lobed 

 and variously grooved, oily and usually edible, sometimes bitter. 



The Hickories are confined to the temperate regions of eastern North America 

 ranging from the valley of the St. Lawrence River to the highlands of Mexico. 

 There are about a dozen species, all being found within the United States excepting 

 one. Their wood is very strong, flexible and more valuable than any other woods 

 for certain uses. They have smooth gray bark when young, but with age become 

 fissured into hard plates and scales. The branches are tough and flexible and the 

 pith solid. (The name is from the popular name which is of American Indian 

 origin. ) 



292. HICORIA VILLOSA, ASHE. 



PALE-LEAF HICKORY. 

 Ger., Zottige Hickory; Fr., Noyer villeaux; Sp., Nogal velludo. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: Leaves 6-10 in. long, with slender pubescent petioles 

 and usually 7 (sometimes 5 or 9) leaflets which vary from lanceolate to lance- 

 obovate, serrate, acuminate, and when young pubescent and covered beneath with 

 silvery peltate scales and resin-globules, but at maturity glabrous dark green 

 above and yellowish beneath; winter buds small with 6-8 imbricated scales, the 

 outer dotted with resin-globules. Flowers staminate in scurfy pubescent catkins, 

 5-7 in. long; central calyx-lobe much longer than the lateral ones. Fruit sub- 

 globose to pyriform, 1-1% in. long, compressed with thin husk splitting nearly to 

 the base; nut slightly angled, pale brown with thick shell and small sweet seed. 



