The Walnuts and the Hickories 



satiny lustre. Buds often one above another in axils, hairy, 

 flattened, terminal largest; inner scales later becoming leaf-like; 

 flower buds naked. Leaves alternate, compound, of 1 1 to 19 

 leaflets, hairy, taper pointed, serrate, sessile, except terminal 

 leaflet, 15 to 30 inches long, yellow-green, turning yellow in 

 autumn; leaflets 3 to 5 inches long; petioles and veins pubescent 

 and clammy. Flowers, May, with leaves, staminate in catkins, 

 3 to 5 inches long, yellow-green with copious pollen; pistillate in 

 6 to 8-flowered racemes, covered with glandular hairs; stigmas 

 2, bright red, spreading; ovule solitary at base of pistil. Fruit, 

 October, an oblong nut in spongy, clammy, sticky, indehiscent 

 husk, with pungent odour; shell thick, deeply sculptured; nut 

 oily, sweet, edible. Preferred habitat, deep, rich loam of river 

 valleys, or well-drained hillsides. Distribution, New Brunswick 

 to Delaware, and along mountains to Georgia and Alabama; 

 westward through Ontario to Dakota, south to Arkansas. Uses: 

 Planted for shade and for nuts. Wood used for interior finish 

 of houses and for cabinet work. Inner bark and husks yield 

 yellow dye and medicinal substances. Sap sweet, sometimes 

 added to maple sap in making sugar. Nuts pickled when green; 

 locally sold when ripe. 



The butternut is a short-trunked, low-headed tree, with far- 

 reaching arms that make a crown wider than it is high. There 

 is a tendency to develop the under buds on each twig. This 

 gives a horizontal rather than an upward trend to the limbs. 

 The foliage, trunk and wood are lighter in colour than those of the 

 black walnut. It is a cheerful tree, but unfortunately short lived, 

 and it is rare to see a tree of considerable size that is not diseased 

 by fungi and blemished by insects. The wind breaks the long 

 limbs, whereupon enemies enter and take possession. The 

 winter buds of the butternut are full of character. The leaf scars 

 are prominent, and two or three buds stand in a vertical row 

 above each one. The first bud, just above the hairy "beetling 

 brow" of the leaf scar, is to produce the leafy shoot next spring. 

 Those higher up at the same joint are bare little green pineapples — 

 the staminate catkins in an immature state. The grey-green 

 downy twigs are clammy to the touch, and inside is the wonderful 

 chambered pith that distinguishes all the walnuts. 



One need only crush a twig or leaf of a walnut tree to have 

 revived the memory of long-forgotten experiences in brown 



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