Pecan 



225 



husk very thin, about i mm. thick, yellowish scurfy, splitting to near the base into 

 4 valves; nut pointed at each end, smooth, scarcely if at all grooved, brown; the 

 shell is very dark, 3 mm. thick or more, 2-cellcd at the base by a very thick par- 

 tition; seed small and sweet, the cotyledons nearly entire. 



The wood is hard, tough, and ver>' strong, close-grained, light brown; its 

 specific gravity is about 0.80. It is used for fuel and for other purposes in 

 which hickory is desirable. . 



The leaves of this tree are the most lustrous of the Hickories. It should be a 

 most desirable tree for parks and lawns in the southern States, in which, however, 

 it is very seldom seen at the present time. 



2. PECAN Hicoria Pecan (Marshall) Britten 

 Juglans Pecan Marshall. Carya olivajormis Nuttall. Carya Pecan C. K. Schneider 



A very handsome tree, the largest of Hickories, native of rich, moist soils of 

 river valleys from Indiana to Iowa, Missouri and Kansas south to Alabama and 

 Texas, attaining in its greatest development in 

 Texas a height of about 50 meters, with a trunk 

 diameter of 2 m. 



The trunk is large, straight and tall. The 

 branches are stout, short and Httle spreading, in 

 the forest forming an oblong or inverted cone- 

 shaped head; in the open the lower branches are 

 spreading, the tree becoming round-topped. The 

 bark is 2.5 to 4 cm. thick, deeply but narrowdy 

 furrowed into irregular, rough, angular, light red- 

 dish brown ridges. The twigs are stout, pale 

 and loosely hairy, soon becoming smooth, reddish 

 brown, and bearing large oblong 3-lobed leaf scars. 

 The terminal winter buds are about 1 2 mm. long, 

 sharp-pointed, covered by narrow, haivy scales, 

 which do not increase ver\' much in size as the 

 bud expands; the lateral buds are small, yellowish hairy, two together, borne one 

 above the other, the upper one the larger. The leaves are 3 to 5 dm. long, 

 including the slender, flatfish, slightly grooved, more or less hairy leaf-stalk. Leaf- 

 lets 9 to 15, the smaller near the base, thin but firm in texture, on short, stout 

 stalks; they are ovate to oblong-lanceolate, 8 to 15 cm. long, somewhat cur\-ed, 

 unequally rounded or wedge-shaped at the base, long taper-pointed at the apex, 

 coarsely toothed; the terminal leaflet is equally wedge-shaped at the base and 

 often stalked; they are dark green, smooth or nearly so above, pale and prominently 

 yellowish veined beneath. The staminate catkins are 12 to 15 cm. long, slightly 

 hair}^, sessile or nearly so, near the ends of the twigs of the previous season; the 

 perianth is light green, hain,', the lateral lobes are broadly ovate, sharp-pointed. 



Fig. 183. Pecan. 



