270 TREES IN" WINTER 



MOCKERNUT 

 Big Bud Hickory, White-heart Hickory. 



Carya alba (L.) K. Koch. 

 C. tomentosa Nutt. ; Hickoria alba Britton. 



HABIT — A tall tree 50-70 ft. high with trunk diameter of 2-3 ft.; 

 lower branches more or less drooping; those above ascending at a sharp 

 angle, forming a narrow oblong or broad round-topped head, trunk 

 somewhat swollen at base. 



BARK — Light to dark gray, not shaggy, broken by irregular inter* 

 rupted fissures into shallow rounded and smooth-topped ridges which 

 are transversely cracked at intervals; the smoothness of the furrows 

 and of the rounded ridges together with the grayness of the bark is 

 quite characteristic, giving an appearance as if the roughness of the 

 bark had been sandpapered down or as if a thin veil had been drawn 

 over the trunk. 



TWIGS — Very stout, generally more or less finely downy, reddish- 

 brown to gray. LENTICELS — numerous, pale, conspicuous, longitudin- 

 ally elongated. PITH — obscurely 5-pointed, star-shaped. 



LEAF-SCARS — Alternate, more than 2-ranked, similar to those of 

 Shag-bark Hickory but rather tending to be more distinctly 3-lobed with 

 basal lobe elongated. 



BUDS — Terminal buds pale, densely hairy, broadly ovate, blunt or 

 sharp-pointed, 10-20 mm. long, outermost scales falling in early autumn, 

 exposing the yellowish-gray, silky inner scales, some of which fall 

 during the winter. 



FRUIT — Spherical to obovate, 4-C cm. long, more or less narrowed at 

 the ends; husk 3-4 mm. thick, splitting to middle or nearly to base. 

 NUT — brown, variable in size and shape, spherical to oblong, more or 

 less flattened and angled and generally pointed at both ends; shell very 

 tnick; seed comparatively small, sweet. 



COMPARISONS — The Mockernut, so named from the disappointingly 

 small kernel obtained from the relatively large nut, is distinguished 

 by its large, fat, pale, downy buds, which do not retain the outer 

 dark scales as do the narrower buds of the Shag-bark Hickory. The 

 peculiar smoothness of the ridges and furrows of the gray bark is also 

 a distinctive characteristic. 



DISTRIBUTION — In various soils; woods, dry, rocky ridges, mountain 

 slopes. Niagara peninsula and westward; south to Florida, ascending 

 3,500 feet in Virginia; west to Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Oklahoma, 

 and Texas. 



IN NEW ENGLAND — Maine and Vermont not reported; . New Hamp- 

 shire — sparingly along the coast; Massachusetts — rather common east- 

 ward; Connecticut — occasional or frequent; Rhode Island — common. 



WOOD — Very heavy, hard, tough, strong, close-grained, flexible, rich 

 dark brown, with thick nearly white sapwood; used for the same 

 purpose as that of the Shag-bark Hickory. 



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