364 AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



disappointingly small kernel within. The range is not as extensive as some of the 

 other hickories. Beginning in southern Ontario, it extends westward and southward 

 to eastern Kansas and the eastern half of Texas. The region of its most abundant 

 growth is in the basin of the lower Ohio and in Arkansas, the best specimens appear- 

 ing in fertile uplands. This is said to be the only hickory that invades the southern 

 maritime pinebelt, growing on the low country along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts in 

 abundance. The leaves are fragrant with a powerful, resinous odor; they have five 

 or seven leaflets with hairy petioles or stems. The bark resembles that of bitternut, 

 and is not scaly like that of shagbark. The wood weighs 51.21 pounds per cubic 

 foot. It is hard, strong, tough, flexible. It has about ninety-four per cent of the 

 strength of shagbark, and eighty per cent of its stiffness. Certain selected specimens 

 of this species are probably as strong as any hickory; but, as is the case with all 

 woods, there is great difference between specimens, and general averages only are 

 to be relied upon. G. W. Letterman, who collected woods for Sargents' tests, pro- 

 cured a sample of this hickory near Allenton, Missouri, which showed strength suffi- 

 cient to sustain 20,000 pounds per square inch, and its measure of stiffness was the 

 enormous figure of 2,208,000 pounds per square inch. 



The uses of mocker nut hickory do not differ from those of other hickories. 

 The tree is ferquently nearly all sapwood, to which the name white hickory is due. 

 Some persons suppose that the heartwood is white, but that misconception is due to 

 the fact that some pretty large trees have no heartwood, but are sap clear through. 



The term "black hickory" is sometimes applied to three species with dark- 

 colored bark which bears some resemblance to the bark of ash. They are bitternut 

 (Hicoria minima), pignut (Hicoria glabra), and mocker nut (Hicoria alba). When the 

 word black is thus used, it refers to the bark and the general outward appearance of 

 the tree, and not to the wood, which is as white as that of any other hickory. 



