Big Shellbark 



231 



light red and hairy. The pistillate flowers are clustered 2 to 5 together, somewhat 

 constricted toward the top, pale hairy; their stigmas are dark red. The fruit is 

 globose or globose-obovoid, 4 to 9 cm. long, dark reddish hairy or nearly smooth; 

 husk thick, readily splitting to near the base; the nut smooth, slightly flattened, 

 4-angled, pointed at the top, rounded at the base and reddish brown, the shell and 

 partitions thick and hard; seed sweet, relatively small, deeply lobed, brown and 

 shining. 



The wood is very hard, strong, tough and elastic, close-grained, and dark 

 brown; its specific gravity is about 0.82. It is used as is the wood of other species, 

 all of which are indiscriminately called hickory ia the lumber trade. 



A handsome tree, which retains its foliage longer in the autumn than most 

 other hickories. 



8. BIG SHELLBARK — Hicoria laciniosa (F. A. Michaux) Sargent 

 Juglans laciniosa F. A. Michaux. Carya sulcata NuttaE, not Juglans sulcata Willdenow 



This tree grows mainly in rich lands that are more or less subject to overflow 

 along rivers from New York to Iowa and Nebraska, southward to Tennessee and 

 Arkansas. It is rare near the Atlantic coast, but very plentiful in the central 

 States. Its maximum height is about 40 meters, 

 with a trunk diameter of 1.5 m. It is also known 

 as the Big shagbark. Thick shellbark, Kingnut, 

 and Gloucester broad nut. 



The trunk is straight and rather slender. The 

 branches are mostly short and spreading, forming 

 a narrow cylindric tree. The bark is gray, 2.5 to 

 4 cm. thick, freely splitting into long and narrow 

 plates, which hang on for many years; the bark of 

 the branches is smoother and lighter. The twigs 

 are stout, angular, hairy, becoming round, nearly 

 smooth, and yellowish, by which feature it is easily 

 distinguished from all other hickories. The termi- 

 nal buds are ovoid, bluntish, often 2.5 cm. long 

 and two thirds as thick, covered by many imbri- 

 cated scales, the outer scales dark brown, long- ^'°- '^9- — Big Shellbark. 

 pointed and slightly hairy; the inner scales are densely coated with yellow hairs; 

 some of them continue to grow after the expansion of the bud, becoming 5 to 7 

 cm. long, obovate, reflexed, light green or red or yellow, smooth and shining on 

 the inner surface, silky and somewhat resinous on the outer surface, and fall off 

 with the staminate catkins. The leaves are 2.5 to 5.5 dm. long, the leaf-stalk 

 stout, smooth or hairj-, flattish, grooved, abuptly thickened at the base, often re- 

 maining on the branches long after the leaflets have fallen. The leaflets, usually 

 7 to 9, rarely but 5, are obovate, oblong or oblong-lanceolate, the upper broadest 



