WALNUT FAMILY 



Flowers. — May, when leaves are half grown ; monoecious. The 

 catkins of staminate flowers appear in the autumn as short cone- 

 like buds, slightly hairy, solitary or in pairs ; when mature are three 

 to five inches long. The perianth, subtended by an acute triangu- 

 lar bract, coated with tomentum, is six-lobed ; lobes imbricate, 

 nearly orbicular. Stamens twenty to thirty, arranged in several 

 rows, with purple anthers surmounted by slightly lobed connectives. 

 Pistillate flowers are borne in a two to five-flowered spike, ovate, 

 pointed, maturing later than the staminate. The bract and bract- 

 lets which form the outer covering of the flower are green and hairy 

 above, covered with pale hairs beneath, sometimes cut into a 

 laciniate border, sometimes undivided, sometimes greatly reduced. 

 Calyx four-lobed ; lobes imbricate, acute, light green, hairy. Styles 

 two ; stigmas recurved, yellow green, tinged with red. Ovary in- 

 ferior, ovule solitary. 



Fruit. — Nut inclosed in an indehiscent involucre, making a kind 

 of dry drupe, solitary or in pairs, globose or slightly pyriform, yel- 

 low green, roughly dotted, one and a half to two inches in diameter. 

 The nut is oval or oblong, slightly flattened, without sutural ridges, 

 one and a quarter to one and a half inches in length, dark brown, 

 four-celled at top and bottom. Kernel sweet and edible. Cotyle- 

 dons deeply lobed. 



The Black Walnut growing alone is one of the grandest 

 and most massive trees of our flora. Given a rich soil and 

 ample space, "it equals in the boldness of its ramifications 

 and the amplitude of its head the best specimens of the oak 

 or chestnut." Its lower branches often sweep the ground, 

 while its upper tower sixty or seventy feet into the air. Then, 

 too, its plumy yellow green foliage, tufted at the end of the 

 spray, long-petioled and narrow-leaved, catches and throws 

 the sunlight and makes of its very shade a golden glow. 



This is the free creature protected by man. In the forest 

 living under the law of competition it becomes entirely dif- 

 ferent. There, the trunk rises straight as a column forty, 

 fifty, or si.xty feet, without the suggestion of a branch, and 

 finally puts forth a narrow round-topped somewhat rigid 

 head, 



So much a long communion tends 

 To make us what we are. 



A single Black Walnut will lighten a dense foliage mass 

 wonderfully and has great value in a landscape for that rea- 



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