AMERICAN FOREST TREES 375 



medullary rays, annual rings, springwood and summerwood, is similar to the wood of 

 other hickories. Trees grow best in sandy soil but near swamps and rivers where 

 there is plenty of water. The largest trunks are eighty or one hundred feet in height 

 and two in diameter. When use is made of this hickory it serves the same purposes 

 as the wood of other trees of the group. It is never reported separately in statistics 

 of wood utilization. It is too scarce to be important as a timber tree. It apparently 

 has a future as an ornament, though it has not yet been widely planted. It has 

 proved a success in the Carolinas and it thrives in the climate of Washington, D. C. 

 The luster of its foliage makes it the most beautiful of the hickories. In common with 

 other members of the genus, its long taproot renders the transplanting of nursery 

 stock difficult. 



WATER HICKORY (Hicoria aquatica) is known as swamp hickory in South 

 Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana; bitter pecan in Mississippi and Louisiana, 

 and water bitternut in Tennessee and South Carolina. The northern limit of this 

 species is in Virginia near Mobjack bay, the southern limit in the Caloosa valley, 

 Florida, west to the Brazos river, Texas, and north to southern Illinois. The wood is 

 hard, heavy, strong, but rather brittle; the sapwood is thick and often is nearly white, 

 while the heartwood is dark brown. It is the most porous of the hickories, and the 

 pores are distributed generally through the annual rings of growth. In other hickor- 

 ies they are largely restricted to the inner part of each ring, though a few are dispersed 

 through all parts. In swamp hickory there is little difference in appearance between 

 the wood grown early in the season and that produced later. The tree is a rapid 

 grower. It is an inhabitant of deep swamps, and if the land is inundated a consider- 

 able part of the year, the tree seems to grow all the better. At its best it may attain 

 a height of 100 feet, and a diameter of two, but that size is unusual. The nut is 

 small and wrinkled, and when broken open, pockets of red bitter powder are frequent- 

 ly found inside the shell. Usually the nuts are too bitter to be eaten, but it is said 

 that near the western limit of the tree's range, nuts are sometimes edible. 



The only reported uses for the wood are fuel and fencing. It is poor fence 

 material, because, like other hickories, it decays in a short time when exposed to 

 weather. The wood of this genus is rich in foods on which decay-producing fungi 

 feed. Fungus is a low order of plant life which sends its hair-like threads into the 

 wood cells and consumes the material found there; but numerous insects bore into 

 wood to procure food. Few woods suffer from such attacks more than hickory. 

 Even after it is seasoned and manufactured into commodities, it is frequently attack- 

 ed by various species of powder post beetles, and much injury results. Water hickory 

 while yet standing is often greatly damaged by the larvae of certain moths which find 

 their way into the soft wood just under the bark and tunnel minute galleries which 

 subsequently fill with brown substance. According to R. B. Hough, these brown 

 streaks in water hickory are hard enough to turn the edge of steel tools. They not 

 only damage the structure of the wood but spoil its appearance. 



BITTER PECAN (Hicoria texana) is a Texas species which has not been reported 

 elsewhere. The average size of the tree is from fifteen to twenty-five feet in height 

 and eight to ten inches in diameter; but in rich bottom land, particularly along the 

 Brazos river, specimens sometimes attain a diameter of three feet and a height of 100. 

 The leaves are from ten to twelve inches in length, with from seven to eleven leaflets. 

 The nuts are very bitter, but are of approximately the same size and shape as edible 

 pecans. The shells are thin and very brittle. The tree's range extends inland 100 

 or 150 miles from the Texas coast. 



