The Walnuts and the Hickories 



crunched these hickory nuts which nutters, looking for shellbarks, 

 scornfully left under the trees. The insipid meats were distasteful 

 to human palates — fit only for pigs. 



Yet here is one of the finest of the hickories. Its bark is close 

 textured like that of a white ash. Its leaves and shoots soon lose 

 their down and become smooth and lustrous. The small winter 

 buds are ovate, and during autumn their outer scales drop. The 

 nuts are roundish and smooth shelled. The thin husks split but 

 half way down, and are there grown fast to the shell. These 

 characters mark the typical Eastern pignut. West of the Allegha- 

 nies is a form that sheds its husks, and has angled, ovoid nuts. 

 The bark of this variety — odoraia — is rough, like an American 

 elm, but not shaggy. 



Variety microcarpa is a pignut with bark of the H. ovata type, 

 stripping into narrow, thin, springy sheets. The roundish nut is 

 white or grey, and thin shelled. The kernel is sweet. There are 

 reasons for believing this to be a natural hybrid between H. ovata 

 and H. glabra. Its branches are likely to be pendulous, and the 

 head more oblong than the ordinary pignut. It is commonly 

 called "false shagbark." 



The extreme variability of the species glabra, and the good 

 quality of fruit in var. microcarpa make horticulturists believe 

 that the pignut is worthy of cultivation. Experiments are now 

 in progress looking toward the improvement of the fruit for com- 

 mercial purposes. The signs are hopeful. 



With wood equal to the best in its genus, exceptional merits 

 as a shade and ornamental tree, and promise of developing orch'ard 

 varieties that will rival the shagbarks as nut trees, the pignuts 

 seem to be one of the "coming trees" in the Eastern States. It is 

 to be hoped that the popular name will be abandoned and the 

 more suitable one, "smooth hickory," substituted. This is a 

 literal translation of its scientific name. 



The Pale-leaf Hickory (H. villosa, Ashe) has tomentose 

 slender twigs, with silvery scales, and very pale leaf linings. The 

 nuts are thick shelled and faintly angled like the mockernut, and 

 the bark is very deeply furrowed and rough, but not shaggy. It 

 grows, a small, narrow-headed tree, in barren soil from New 

 Jersey to Florida, west to Missouri and Texas. 



Big Shellbark {H. laciniosa, Sarg.)— A tall tree loo to 120 

 feet high, with narrow, oblong head. Branches small, spreading. 



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