178 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



rounded or cuneate at the unequal base, sessile, except the terminal leaflet, or short-stalked, 

 dark yellow-green and glabrous or pilose above, and pale and glabrous or pubescent below, 

 4 '-8' long, l'-3' wide, with a narrow yellow midrib and conspicuous veins. Flowers: 

 stamina te in slender puberulous clustered aments 3'-5' long, from buds formed in the axils 

 of leaves of the previous year or occasionally on shoots of the year, sessile or short-stalked, 

 light yellow-green and hirsute on the outer surface, with broadly ovate acute lobes rather 

 shorter than the oblong or obovate bract; stamens 5' or 6'; anthers yellow, slightly villose; 

 pistillate in few or many flowered spikes, oblong, narrowed at the ends, slightly 4-angled 

 and coated with yellow scurfy pubescence. Fruit in clusters of 3-11, pointed at apex, 

 rounded at the narrowed base, 4-winged and angled, l'-2^' long, %'-l' broad, dark brown 

 and more or less thickly covered with yellow scales, with a thin, brittle husk splitting at 

 maturity nearly to the base and often persistent on the branch during the winter after the 

 discharge of the nut; nut ovoid to ellipsoidal, nearly cylindric or slightly 4-angled toward 

 the pointed apex, rounded and usually apiculate at base, bright reddish brown, with irreg- 



Fig. 169 



ular black markings with a thin shell and papery partitions; seed sweet, red-brown, its 

 nearly flat lobes grooved from near the base to the apex by 2 deep longitudinal grooves. 



A tree, 100-180 high, with a tall massive trunk occasionally 6 or 7 in diameter above 

 its enlarged and buttressed base, stout slightly spreading branches forming in the forest 

 a narrow symmetrical and inversely pyramidal head, or with abundant room a broad 

 round-topped crown, and branchlets at first slightly tinged with red and coated with loose 

 pale tomentum, becoming glabrous or puberulous in their first winter, and marked by 

 numerous oblong orange-colored lenticels and by large oblong concave leaf-scars with 

 a broad thin membranaceous border surrounding the lower axillary bud. Winter- 

 buds acute, compressed, covered with clusters of bright yellow articulate hairs and pale 

 tomentum; terminal \' long; axillary ovoid, often stalked, especially the large upper 

 bud. Bark l'-l|' thick, light brown tinged with red, and deeply and irregularly divided 

 into narrow forked ridges broken on the surface into thick appressed scales. Wood heavy, 

 hard, not strong, brittle, coarse-grained, light brown tinged with red, with thin light brown 

 sap wood; less valuable than that of most Hickories, and used chiefly for fuel, and occa- 

 sionally in the manufacture of wagons and agricultural implements. The nuts, which 

 vary in size and shape and in the thickness of their shells and in the quality of the kernels, 

 are an important article of commerce. 



Distribution. Low rich .ground in the neighborhood of streams; in the valley of the Mis- 

 sissippi River, Iowa (Clinton and Muscatine Counties), southern Illinois, southwestern 



