The Walnuts and the Hickories 



Bark thick, grey, shedding in long thick plates that hang on foi 

 years. Twigs orange yellow. IVood heavy, hard, strong, tough, 

 very flexible, dark brown, close grained. Buds terminal, very 

 large, ovate, obtuse; scales silky, outer ones, brown, keeled and 

 pointed; inner ones grow to 3 inches long and i inch wide and 

 recurve as leaves appear, turning rosy or yellow on inner, lustrous 

 face; lateral buds small. Leaves 15 to 22 inches long, of 5 to 9 

 obovate or oblong-lanceolate leaflets, dark green and lustrous 

 above, pale yellow-green or bronzy pubescent below; petioles 

 stout, enlarged at base, recurved and persistent during winter. 

 Flowers: staminate in catkins 5 to 8 inches long, smooth, or rufous 

 pubescent ; pistillate in spikes, terminal, 2 to 5-flowered, pale 

 tomentose, angled, green. Fruit solitary or paired, in woody, 

 4-valved husk, sutures opening half way at maturity, downy, 

 orange brown, if to 2 J inches long; nut compressed, with 4 to 6 

 ridges, ij to 2J inches long; hard, bony, thick, enclosing sweet, 

 fme-flavoured kernel. Preferred habitat, rich, deep bottom lands. 

 Distribution, Iowa, Missouri and Arkansas, eastern Kansas and 

 Oklahoma; Illinois and Indiana to Tennessee, New York and 

 Pennsylvania. Uses: Nuts commercially valuable. Wood not 

 distinguished from that of H. ovaia. A worthy ornamental tree. 



In the markets we often see nuts of large size — more flattened 

 than English walnuts and fully as large — which the dealer calls 

 "shellbarks." They look like a larger form of the little shellbarks; 

 but we hesitate. They are strangers, and their flavour is an 

 unknown quantity. These are the ^'king nuts" — not equal to 

 the little shellbarks in quality, yet sweet, edible nuts, though in 

 thick shells. They are distributed from the cities along the 

 Mississippi, and are appearing in increasing quantities in Eastern 

 markets. 



In winter the tree may be recognised by its dead petioles, 

 curving back on the twigs which bore leaves the past summer. 

 The very large terminal buds are another winter trait. At any 

 season the orange-coloured twigs are the best distinguishing feature 

 of the species. This tree has shaggy bark, though this character 

 is less pronounced than in H. ovata. It is hardy in the Arnold 

 Arboretum, near Boston, and seems to grow more rapidly than 

 other hickories in cultivation. In the wild it grows in bottom 

 lands, but does well on dryer, sloping ground. 



A hybrid between the pecan and laciniosa is reported by Dr. 

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