Chap. X WALNUT, 379 



WaJiiiit (J'lf/Jaiis refiia). — This tree and the common nut belong 

 to a widely different order from the foregoinji- fruits, and are there- 

 fore here noticed. Tlie walnut grows wild on the Caucasus and in 

 the Himalaya, where Ur. Hooker'-" found the fruit of full size, but 

 " as hard as a hickory-nut." It has been found fossil, as M. de 

 Saporta informs me, in the tertiary formation, of France. 



In England the walnut presents consideratile differences, in the 

 shape and size of the fruit, in the thickness of the husk, and in the 

 thinness of the shell ; this latter quality has given rise to a variety 

 called the thin-shelled, which is valuable, l)ut suffers from the 

 attacks of tit-mice."'' The degree to whicli the kernel tills the 

 shell varies much. In France there is a variety called the Grape 

 or cluster-walnut, in which the nuts grow in " lainches of ten, 

 fifteen, or even twenty together." There is another variety which 

 bears on the same tree differently shaped leaves, like the hetero- 

 l^hyllous hornbeam; this tree is also remarkable from having 

 pendulous branches, and bearing elongated, large, thin-shelled 

 nuts.'^' M. Cardan has minutely described'-" some singular physi- 

 ological peculiarities in the June-leafing variety, which produces 

 its leaves and flowers four or five weeks later tli-an the common 

 varieties ; and although in August it is apparently in exactly the 

 same state of forwardness as the other kinds, it retains its leaves and 

 fruit mucli later in the autumn. These constitiitional peculiarities 

 are strictly inherited. Lastly, walnut-trees, which are properly 

 luonoicous, sometimes entirely fail to produce male flowers.'** 



JSiiita {Coiyln.s avellana). — Most botanists rank all the varieties 

 under the same species, the common wild nut.'-^* The liusk, or 

 involucre, differs greatly, being ext]-emely short in Earr's Spanish, 

 and extremely long in filberts, in which it is contracted so as to 

 prevent the nut tailing out. This kind of husk also protects the 

 nut from bii'ds, for titance {Pnrua) have been observed '•'^^ to pass 

 over filberts, antl attaclc cobs and common nuts growing in the 

 same orchard. In the purple-filbert the husk is purple, and in the 

 frizzled-filhert it is curiously laciniated; in the red-filbert the 

 pellicle of the kernel is red. The shell is thick in some varieties, 

 but is thin in Cosiord's-nut, and in one variety is of a bluish colour. 

 The nut itself differs much in size and shape, being ovate and 

 compressed in filberts, nearly round and of great size in cubs and 



'=» ' Himalayan Journals,' 1854, 1849, p. 101. 

 vol. ii. p. 334. Moorcroft ('Travels,' '33 . G,.jj.jyQe,.'s Chronicle,' 1847, 



vol. ii. p. 146) describes four varieties pp. 541 and 558. 

 cultivated in Kashmir. ''* The following details are taken 



'3« 'Gardener's Chronicle,' 1850, from the ' Catalogue of Fruits, 1842, 



p. 723. in Garden of Hort. Soc.,' p. 103; and 



'3' Paper translated in Loudon's from Loudon's ' Encyclop. of Garden* 



' Gardener's Mag.,' 1829, vol. v. p. ing,' p. 943. 

 202. i^-^ 'Gardeper's Chron.,' 18G0, p 



'^'-' Quoted in ' Gardener's Chron.,' 956. 



