238 



The Hickories 



yellowish green and smooth above, paler, often yellowish brown, and smooth 

 except for a few tufts of hairs at the junction of the principal veins beneath. 

 The staminate catkins are 6 to lo cm. long, in short-stalked clusters of 3; their 

 sharp-pointed bracts are smooth, equalling or a httle longer than the lateral 

 lobes of the perianth, which are ovate and rounded; stamens 4, their anthers 

 nearly sessile, ovate, notched, hairy above the middle. The pistillate flowers are 

 in spikes of 2 to 5, 6 mm. long, 4-angled and nearly smooth. The fruit is sub- 

 globose to obovoid or pear-shaped, 3.5 to 5 cm. long, often depressed at the top, 

 reddish brown, nearly smooth; its husk is rather thin, tardily separating into valves 

 after falling from the tree; the nut is ellipsoid to nearly globular, very slightly 

 4-angled, rounded at each end, sometimes compressed; shell thick; the seed is 

 small, deeply divided and grooved, bitter and astringent. 



The wood is hard, tough and strong, elastic and close-grained; its specific 

 gravity is about 0.82. It is used like the Shellbark hickor\% from which it is not 

 distinguished in the lumber trade. Pioneer brooms were made by spHtting small 

 saplings into thin strips. 



This tree varies greatly. A form with larger hairy leaves and larger fruit, oc- 

 curs from Virginia to Georgia and is known as Hicoria glabra hirsuta Ashe; it may 

 be a distinct species. 



14. WOOLLY PIGNUT Hicoria villosa (Sargent) Ashe 

 Hicoria glabra villosa Sargent. Carya villosa C. K. Schneider 



This tree grows in open, low sandy or rocky woods in Missouri and Arkansas, 



reaching a maximum height of 15 meters, 

 with a trunk diameter of 6 dm. It is also 

 called the Scurfy hickory and doubtless re- 

 ceives some of the names applied to the 

 Pignut, with which it is usually confounded. 

 The trunk and branches resemble the 

 Pignut. The bark is 12 to 20 mm. thick, 

 deeply furrowed into broad, irregularly con- 

 fluent ridges of a dark brown color. The 

 twigs are slender, covered with pale hairs, 

 and silvery resin-glands, becoming smooth, 

 bright purplish brown, and marked by few 

 lenticels and roundish leaf scars, finally dark 

 brown; the terminal buds are ovoid, sharp- 

 pointed, 3 to 6 mm. long, their scales im- 

 bricated, bearing many yellow resinous 

 glands; the lateral buds are very small. 



Fig. 196. Woolly Pignut. rr^i 1 . j i ^u i f 



The leaves are i to 3 dm. long, the leaf- 

 stalk slender, brownish hain,', becoming nearly smooth by autumn; leaflets varying 



