WALNUT. 381 



which is smooth when young, thick and cracked when old. The 

 leaves are large, alternate, petiolate, winged, consisting of seven or 

 nine, sometimes of five leaflets, which are ovate or ovate-oblong, 

 glabrous, acute, nerved, veined, entire, rarely serrated, of a 

 bright green colour. The male flowers are disposed in long, 

 cylindrical, pendent spikes, of a brownish green colour, each 

 flower with a rhombic bractea inserted into the lower surface 

 near the end ; the calyx is seven-parted, with roundish seg- 

 ments; the stamens are about eighteen or twenty, with very 

 short filaments supporting erect, oblong, two-celled anthers. 

 The female flowers are two or three together, nearly sessile, 

 situated near the extremity of the boughs ; the calyx is an obso- 

 lete margin crowning the germen, mostly of four erect, evanes- 

 cent, short segments ; the corolla is four-parted, with • ensiform, 

 fleshy, green petals. The germen is oval, supporting a bipar- 

 tite style, terminated by large, reflexed, indented, lacerated 

 stigmas. The fruit is a large globose-oval drupe, exhibiting 

 under a smooth, light-green, thick, fleshy covering or sarco- 

 carp, an oval-roundish nut, reticulated with furrows exter- 

 nally, inclosing a white, four-lobed, irregularly sinuated nu- 

 cleus. Plate 45, fig. 3, (a) spike of male flowers ; (b) flower, 

 isolated ; (c) group of female flowers ; (d) female flower, mag- 

 nified ; (e) longitudinal section of the fruit. 



The Walnut-tree is generally considered a native of Persia ; 

 it is not indigenous to Europe, but may be considered natu- 

 ralized in Britain. The flowers appear in April and May, and 

 the fruit ripens about the end of September. 



It has been imagined that the tree called by Theophrastus 

 xagvov is our Walnut, but his description is too vague and in- 

 complete to enable us to pronounce with certainty. It was 

 named k<x%vov @ao-i\ixov, nux regia, and Juglans, from Jovis glans, 

 the nut of Jupiter, by way of pre-eminence. Walnut is probably 

 derived from the German Walschnuss, signifying foreign nut. 



The foreign species are for the most part natives of North 

 America, and their fruit in general is eatable. 



General Uses. — The Walnut is valuable both as a fruit and timber 

 tree. Before the introduction of mahogany the wood was much employed 

 in the manufacture of household furniture, but it is now chiefly used in 

 this country for gun-stocks, being lighter in proportion to its strength and 

 elasticity than any other. On the continent the wood is frequently used 



