184 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



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pair. Flowers: staminate opening after the leaves have grown nearly to their full size, in 

 slender light green glandular-hirsute aments 4'-5' long, glandular-hirsute, their elongated 

 ovate-lanceolate acute bract two or three times as long as the ovate concave rounded or 

 acute calyx-lobes; stamens 4, with yellow or red anthers hirsute above the middle; pistillate 

 in 2-5-flowered spikes, -5' long, clothed with rusty tomentum. Fruit solitary or in pairs, 

 subglobose, rather longer than broad or slightly obovoid, depressed at apex, dark reddish 

 brown or nearly black at maturity, roughened by small pale lenticels, glabrous or pilose, 

 l'-2^' long, the husk, f |' thick, splitting freely to the base; nut oblong, nearly twice as 

 long as broad, or obovoid and broader than long, compressed, prominently or obscurely 

 4-ridged and angled, acute and gradually or abruptly narrowed or rounded or nearly 

 truncate at apex, gradually narrowed and rounded at base, pale or nearly white, with a 

 usually thin shell; seed light brown, lustrous, sweet, with an aromatic flavor. 



A tree, 70-90 and occasionally 120 high, with a tall straight trunk 3-4 in diameter, 

 in the forest often free of branches for 50-60 above the ground and then divided into a 

 few small limbs forming a narrow head, or with more space sometimes dividing near the 

 ground or at half the height of the tree into stout slightly spreading limbs, forming a 

 narrow inversely conic round-topped head of more or less pendulous branches, and stout 

 branchlets marked with oblong pale lenticels, covered at first with caducous brown scurf 

 and coated with pale glandular pubescence, soon bright reddish brown, and lustrous, gla- 

 brous or pubescent, growing dark gray in their second year and ultimately light gray, and 

 marked by pale and slightly elevated ovate semiorbicular or obscurely 3-lobed leaf-scars. 

 Winter-buds: terminal broadly ovoid, rather obtuse, |'-f long, '-' broad, the 3 or 4 

 outer scales nearly triangular, acute, dark brown, pubescent and hirsute on the outer 

 surface, the exterior scales often abruptly narrowed into long rigid points and deciduous 

 before the unfolding of the leaves, the inner scales lustrous, covered with resinous glands, 

 yellow-green often tinged with red, oblong-obovate, pointed, becoming 2'-3' long and 

 5' broad, usually persistent until after the fall of the staminate aments; axillary buds 

 coated at first with thick white tomentum, becoming \'-% long when fully grown. Bark 

 light gray, f'-l' thick, separating in thick plates often a foot or more long and 6'-8' wide, 

 and more or less closely attached to the trunk by the middle, giving it the shaggy appear- 

 ance to which this tree owes its common name. Wood heavy, very hard and strong, tough, 

 close-grained, flexible, light brown, with thin nearly white sap wood; largely used in the 

 manufacture of agricultural implements, carriages, wagons, and for axe-handles, baskets, 

 and fuel. The nut is the common Hickory nut of commerce. 



Distribution. Low hills and the neighborhood of streams and swamps in rich deep 

 moderately moist soil; southern Maine to the valley of the St. Lawrence River near Mon- 

 treal, along the northern shores of Lakes Erie and Ontario to central Michigan, central 

 Wisconsin, southeastern Minnesota, eastern Iowa and southeastern Nebraska, and south- 

 ward to western Florida, northern Alabama and Mississippi, and to eastern Kansas, eastern 

 Oklahoma, and eastern Texas; ranging further north than other Hickories with the excep- 

 tion of C. cordiformis ; and in the Carolinas ascending to 3000 above the sea in valleys on 

 the western slope of the Blue Ridge. Variable in the size and shape of the nut and in the 

 character and amount of pubescence on the leaves and branchlets. These varieties are 

 distinguished: var. Nuttallii Sarg., with nuts rounded, obcordate or rarely pointed at 

 apex, rounded or abruptly pointed at base, much compressed, and only about f ' long and 

 \'-\' broad; not rare and widely distributed northward. Var. complanata Sarg., with 

 oblong-obovoid fruit and broadly obovoid much compressed slightly angled nuts cuneate 

 at base and rounded, truncate or slightly obcordate at apex; a single tree on the Drushel 

 Farm near Mt. Hope, Holmes County, Ohio. Var. ellipsoidalis Sarg., with ellipsoidal 

 much compressed nuts abruptly long-pointed at apex, and slender reddish branchlets; 

 near Hannibal, Marion County, and Oakwood, Rolles County, northeastern Missouri, 

 and Indian River, Lewis County, and near Rochester, Munroe County, New York. Var. 

 pubescens Sarg., differing in the dense pubescence of pale fascicled hairs on the young 

 branchlets, and on the petioles, rachis and under surface of the leaflets; bottoms of the 



